Friday, October 01, 2010

travel album - Portland

This one is a doozy! I didn't give myself enough pages, so I had to improvise along the way!

I didn't take photos of every page (oh my), but you get the gist of it here. I'll write some tips and tricks in with the photos, so if you're headed somewhere you can apply some of these pointers to your own travel album.

Use a map of your destination on the cover. this is an old map I found in a road atlas Juli gave me ages ago

Leave a page (or two) for getting there and back. airports have funny stories (the guy who thought it was okay to leave full bottles of shampoo, gel, shaving cream and a pair of scissors in his carry on...I think he missed the 42 signs warning him against this before he entered security!)

If you run out of pages, use the packaging from the supplies you brought...the page on the right is made from  Making Memories packaging. it has a great woodgrain pattern, so it blends right in with the rest of the pages.

I also made a page out of hotel stationary (it's on the back of the MK packaging pictured above). And the page on the right is a trading card holder that has been trimmed then stitched to fit. Remember to bring your hole punch.

Portland Travel Journal
Look in your hotel room for things to use. The circle that I'm holding is one of the paper coasters in our coffee service. I stitched the edge of the paper and did some embellishing before I left.

Portland Travel Journal
I like to bring my instant camera with me so I can add photos as I go along, but it proved to be too heavy to carry around all the time, so I only got a couple of pictures.

Portland Travel Journal
Include a cute envelope so you can add tags or receipts or business cards that are too small to get hole-punched.

Portland Travel Journal
Postcards are the best to add to a travel journal! I always keep my eye out for special ones at every tourist-trap I go to. This one from Multnomah Falls is so vintage and wonderful. Plus, these guys are usually the cheapest souvenir you can buy, so don't be afraid to buy two or three...it's not going to break the bank!

Portland Travel Journal
Menus...we ate at a lot of cool places, so I tried to grab the menu if I saw it. Circle what you ate and what you thought of the place.

Portland Travel Journal
I doodle...a lot. Lucas and I compiled this little sketch of Mt. St. Helens. We including some of the bigger words we learned that day, such as: "lava dome" and "pyroclastic flow". The yellow card on the left is a Parks Comment card I found in the first Mt. St. Helens visitor centre we visited...if it is paper, it is fair game. I also cut out a portion of a tourist map of the area we picked up.

Portland Travel Journal
A page about myself and turning 30. The valet ticket from the hotel. Another postcard. 

Portland Travel Journal
Package from candy I bought at a huge toy store. The pen sketch of the house was from an antique store flyer...the particular antique stores advertised were so off our route, but the images were nice, so I held on to it. Business card from an artist I met got hole-punched and some word embellishments.

Portland Travel Journal
That hideous bright orange piece of paper is the schedule of events for Oktoberfest at the fair. I kept it mostly because of the funny events (we didn't watch them, but it's fun to think of it)...things like pretzel toss, among other things. Plus there is a menu on there, and we definitely partook in some German yummies.

Portland Travel Journal
The back cover. It was completed at home before we left. I added the baggage sticker and the journaling during the trip.

Well, that's it, for the most part. It is very (very) large. It has such texture and heft. And I love it.

Thanks for putting up with me here...Blogger was being a real snot to me yesterday so I had kind of given up getting any of my photos online, but here we are. I'll be getting some more trip photos up in the next couple of days. It's fun to reminisce about my trip with you!

Also, I have an ambitious idea for a DIY, so watch for that! Eeek!

later skater alligator

p.s. thanks to flickr for rotating all of my pics, cause blogger is being a goober again. but sort of randomly, so I can't stay mad! It's just four more steps to put one photo on here, but it's worth it...at least, that's what I keep telling myself!



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