big fat cheater's super-fast travel scrapbook

going on vacation?

want a fabulous minibook to record your trip, but don't have time (or money) to waste??!

well listen up then, because i spent about $5 total and had this baby all but FINISHED when we got back from myrtle beach! i didn't lug 75lbs. of stuff with me, either, or spend much time scrapping while we were there.

ya just gotta know how to *CHEAT*!!!

ok, so it's not a *traditional* scrapbook. (i don't really make those, except for the nieces.) i just wanted a place to put all the stuff we accumulate when we travel, record the fun we had, and maybe add some photos from the trip. so i planned AROUND the stuff i would be collecting, to make the brochures and things we tend to gather integral to the design.

and it was alllllllllll downhill from there, baby!

the naked book: measuring a standard brochure, i cut plain chipboard (the free kind you get in your 12 x 12 patterned paper order) into two 9 x 4.5" pieces to serve as front & back covers. i designed a simple page template in broderbund printshop & made a page for each day of the week, plus activities i knew i'd want to write about... (such as "the beach" "bbq" "charleston" & so forth) ...i added some blank pages, too, as well as a few transparencies cut to size--some decorated and some plain. i punched holes in the top left-hand corner of each page with my crop-o-dile, popped everything onto a staples bookring and i was ready to go!

the kit: hole punch; travel-sized scissors & stapler; gluestick, adhesive runner & brads; pencil, eraser & sharpener; selection of pens; inkpad, clearstamps & block; a few 5 x 7 papers; selection of stickers, tabs & tags; dymo labeller & extra tape; and of course some clear stickles in case of glitter withdrawal symptoms! everything except the dymo fits in a standard-sized school box from staples. (i had an "around the block" mini labelmaker, which actually fit IN the box...but it's unsturdiness only lasted about six months in my label-crazy hands.)

the plan: have fun every day doing whatever we feel like doing. collect brochures, maps, postcards, menus, tags, receipts, boarding passes & other ephemera from the places we go. take as few or as many photos as we feel like taking. spend 15 minutes a night writing down what we did that day. write postcards to ourselves about the places we visited. add hilarious dymo-labelled captions to brochures if desired. upload the day's photos onto laptop; sort through and crop some if there's time & energy leftover.

the post-vaycay book: as you can see, it's pretty close to DONE. in fact, if i wasn't really into making the *book* part of minibooks, heck...i could've gone ahead and BEEN DONE at this point. it's already got a written record of each day, ephemera from most of our activities, and everything is neatly held together on a ring.

duuuuuude--it's a travel scrapbook!!!

but as a matter of fact, i *DO* love making the book part of minibooks...it's kinda my thang. so i wanted to decorate it, and i wanted to print some photos, and i maybe even wanted to add a product or two. so i did.

tomorrow, if you like, i will show you some of the inside pages, and the bits i added in after our return!