A few years ago, my husband and two of our daughters took a trip to Bozeman, Montana to visit another daughter and her husband. We made quite a trek of it, visiting many interesting landmarks on the way there and back. To record our journey, I took along an old ledger book and recorded our trip in a travel journal/scrapbook. Some of the pages of that journal are being featured in the Autumn 2014 issue of Somerset Memories, available on the newsstands on October 1. I thought I would begin a series to share ALL of the pages of that journal with you, so here is the first installment!
I started out with a map that I charted as we drove, and a picture of the family members that we were headed to visit. I also added fun things that I came across as we went, like the “pull tab to open” from a mailing envelope.
Another page that I did before we even left home was this page inspired by a fast food take out bag that had the words “to go” and reminded me of the childhood rhyme, “one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, and four to go!” Since there were four of us going on this trip, it seemed very applicable and was pasted into my book.
Early on, I began contents pages at the back of my ledger so that I could remember the places and materials that I used on each of the pages. I do wish I would have been more diligent in this!
And then we were finally on the road, driving through Kansas, and into Nebraska. I sat in the front passenger seat, pasting in postcards, taking pictures to add later, drawing, painting, and journaling as we went!
Heather D
What a great travel journal! Thanks for sharing. I look forward to future installments. A question…did you prep the old ledger before you started on the trip? Did you have to glue any of the pages together?
victoryrd
Thank you! I did not prep the pages in advance, but I did do some repairing as I went. There are some pages that I ended up pasting together, or covering with other paper, but for the most part I left them as is. I love the look of the ledger pages!
kthrow
Wow … this is amazing. What supplies did you take with you to work on the journal or did you embellish/add once you were back? It’s really amazing
victoryrd
I will address that topic more in depth in future posts, but I did take along watercolors, a handful of fun papers, a black pen, and a few embellishments. Most of the things added in were gathered on the trip itself like tea bag tabs, tickets, postcards, etc.
papict
What a fantastic record of your trip. I’m looking forward to seeing more pages. I always write a travel journal and take a million photos any time we go on vacation but maybe I should try my hand at some visual journaling next time. Finding the time to do it will be the challenge I should think. Did you create each page at the end of each day?
victoryrd
Since we had quite a few hours of driving time, much of it was done in the car on my lap. I did do some every night too, so I could get things down while they were still fresh. Even so, there were parts that I finished after we got back home.
Jean Pilch
This is totally a
“do-able” project. Wonderful idea with the map…. thanks for your vision.
Marilyn
How very COOL! Thanks for sharing.