Bahamas Travel Journal // Before the Vacation

We are heading to the Bahamas and Florida on a cruise next week for our honeymoon/my bar trip. I am planning on a lot of relaxing, exploring, tanning and drinking. But also, I know I'm going to want to be crafty and I am going to want a place to keep note of everything that happens so when I get back I can easily work on a trip album/project life.

My solution: create a vacation journal and bring a pouch of basic supplies to fill it out while we're away. I used staples arc system to to bind my album and included a mix of pages created with cardstock, vellum, and project life cards. Because I used the arc system, I can easily remove & add pages, and rearrange the pages. So, even though I tried to include the amount of inserts per day that I think I will use, I can easily adjust as I work on the journal.

Also, because the pages are not in page protectors I wanted them to be as sturdy as possible, so I tried to not adhere anything with adhesive only. Therefore, I used a lot of tiny attacher staples, sewing and washi tape to reinforce the embellishments I added ahead of time. I am bringing both adhesive & washi tape to reinforce the embellishments I add during my trip. However, using staples and sewing made creating the book more of a challenge because the pages are two-sided, but in the end I'm happy with how it looks.

I used mainly Amy Tangerine's Plus One collection to embellish the album, but I also added lots of project life cards from the kiwi edition [and the plus one mini kit]. Additionally, I printed out some free printables from studio calico [some printed on vellum, others on cardstock] and used those as well, and of course a few things came in from my stash. This is going to be a photo heavy post, so sorry in advance, but I figured I should include all the pages & you can scroll through them if you're not interested.

I wanted a vellum intro page [inspired by this amazing project], so created one in photoshop. It is followed by an almost solid page from Plus One papers to help the vellum page be visible.

Next I included a packing checklist. I don't want to forget any essentials! That is followed by an itinerary page. A date card from the Kiwi project life kit and another vellum page covered with digital stamps.

Then I decided to include a full page spread for each day of the vacation. First, the departure day. I used a free printable from studio calico printed on vellum to number each day. I included a 4x6 project life card from the kiwi edition in this spread for extra journaling. On the reverse side of the card I printed some notes to help on the first day.

Day 2, the first full day on the ship. I already wrote in our dinner reservations for the evening.

Day 3, in Port Canaveral, Florida. I added two project life card inserts this day, both from the kiwi edition. On the 3x4 card I printed the name and address of the beach and restaurant we are planning on visiting, I figure I can put these into the gps in my phone if we get lost.

Day 4 is in Great stirrup Cay in the Bahamas. We are planning on snorkeling this day.

Day 5, in Nassau, Bahamas. We are planning on walking around the city and exploring a variety of sights. While out of the country, we turn off the data on our phones to save money, so I printed out and included a map of the city with a list of locations we'd like to visit, as well as important information. I color coded the list with the map so we can find all the locations and plan our day as we go.

Day 6 is a full day at sea heading back to NYC. I included a 3x4 project life card from the Plus One mini kit and a silhouette cut of lyrics from a Brad Paisley song "working on a tan."

Day 7 is another full day at sea. I included just one 3x4 card insert from the Plus One edition.

Day 8 we return home. Although the boat docks early in NYC, we live a few hours north of the city now and plan on stopping halfway (where we used to live) to visit a few of our favorite places, so we won't get home until later that day. So I figured I should include day 8 along with a reflection card on a 4x6 project life card from the kiwi edition.

Finally, I ended the album with a pocket page to slip in small bits of memorabilia to save for later. I also slipped in a map of Port Canaveral, just in case.

Lastly, I packed a pouch from a freckled fawn oh deer me kit with supplies to fill out my book while away. My goal with supplies were to bring basic essentials, flat embellishments and small bits & pieces. I also can't go without basic stamps! I settled on:

+ a black pen (pilot g-2 07), my go to journaling pen
+ a few tropical colors from my staedtler colored pen set
+ alpha stickers from studio calico
+ glitter chevrons from freckled fawn
+ adhesive
+ Stazon black ink
+ Heidi swapp roller date stamp
+ a few small stamps from studio calico & freckled fawn, and a small acrylic block
+ doodle stickers from freckled fawn
+ flat paper clips from freckled fawn
+ 3 washi tapes: one freckled fawn & two thin ones from Amy tangerine plus one
+ paper and vellum cut outs from free printables (some studio calico, don't remember the rest), Amy tangerine plus one, labels made by me, and a few others I had in my stash.

I wanted to bring a small photo printer/instax [like this one] so I could include some of my favorite shots as the vacation progressed, but I couldn't find one that wasn't wifi only! I get that wifi is super convenient, but why not also have a usb option? I am not paying cruise rates for wifi just to print photos, plus I always turn data off on my phone when we leave the country because AT&T's rates are excessive, so it wouldn't be very useful without a usb option, and for the price of these printers I want something I could use every time we travel. It's probably too late for this trip now, but if anyone knows of something that would work let me know!

I know this is a long post, sorry, but I wanted to share the whole thing. Also, I apologize about the poor quality of my photos, I don't get natural light on my desk anymore and it's the only white surface I have, so I'm still trying to decide what to do about photographing projects. Let me know if you have any questions or if you've made a similar book!

Also, I shared a flip through on instagram: http://instagram.com/p/sNMZTyLtaJ/?modal=true.

I haven't decided yet if I want a separate instagram account for my blog or not, any thoughts? My instagram is linked with my facebook so I have lots of friends from school/work that follow me & are not interested in my projects/I don't really want to share them with them either, but it is a pain to log in/out of each account & I would have to refollow everyone/get everyone to follow my new account which would be a pain.

Project Life 2014 // February

Here are my February pages. I promise, I did these back in February, I've just been slow on photographing/uploading, especially with deciding if I was going to blog or not. Ultimately I decided to because I want one central place where all of my projects are displayed and people can contact me, I just don't want the stress that comes along with it. So lets see if it stays fun.

Anyways, February was a cold, snowy month. I used mostly the Dear Lizzy Edition for these pages, but I added in a couple of studio calico cards.

The first page was mostly about the snow days and photos of the snow, plus one of the Times Square Shuttle [which was part of my commute at the time] that had an ad to visit Scottsdale Arizona bragging about how sunny and hot it was there. Not only did that make me homesick, but that is just cruel to do to someone commuting in -8 degree weather. I love including photos of things I see everyday, such as the tiles in the Columbus Circle subway station, because these things change over time. This is a good example, because although I saw that subway station at least 10 times a week for 3 years, I haven't seen it now since May.

The next page was mostly about Valentine's Day, plus of course, more snow days. This was an epic year for snow days. Pretty crazy that in my final semester of law school I get 5 or so snow days...that is something I never got to experience before in my life, since I grew up in California and went to college in Arizona.

I added a small insert with a Valentine's card from my MIL and the program to an awards event at my school where I received an award [Dean's List]. The next page documented an array of things: more snow, a postcard from a penpal in the UK (she's in the UK, the post card is from Ireland), clinic intakes, scrapbooking happy mail, and day dreaming about sunnier days. I love the photo of the Bath & Body Works lotions, I added some white paint to the photo before I embellished. The card about planning our cruise is fun to reflect on now, because we're leaving on that cruise this Saturday.

Finally, the last page has a few more random details from the month. One of my goals with Project Life this year is to journal more so that the story is actually documented. So when I have longer stories, I am trying to type the journaling because I can fit more on a card that way. This page includes a 4x6 card full of journaling about my stressful month and all the work I was doing, which is part of the reason I don't have photos of "fun stuff" this month, but that's okay, that's life. I did include a card about the Olympics because we watched periodically. I wrote the title "Sochi" in Russian because the olympics were in Russia and since we are learning Russian it made sense, I just cut some thickers to make them work.

And that's February!

Project Life 2014 // January

Here are my January pages to start off the year. For each month I used half of a Design E page protector and a calendar from Paper Source as an introductory divider. On the back of each of these dividers I created a month in review card in photoshop.

One of my goals with switching to monthly was to take up less space in the album. So for January I only used two page protectors in addition to the Design E divider: a regular Design A and a coin pocket page which contained 2x2 squares.

January was a month with lots of the "everyday life" type stuff to document and not a ton of huge events, so the coin pocket page worked perfectly. I selected a few of my favorite instagrams from the month and printed them as 2x2 photos. Then I filled in the rest of the pockets with paper and embellishments.

January was the start of a new semester, my final semester of law school. Lots of my documentation this month was about beginning school, my new schedule, and starting my clinic. During my final semester I worked in a low income tax payer clinic for credit, which is a non-profit law firm run by the law school where students are the attorneys with only minimal supervision from professors. It was a great experience, you get a lot more autonomy than with an internship where you work directly under a supervisor. Instead, in the clinic, I had my own clients that I managed myself, and simply reported to my professor when I needed direction.

My favorite part of this page was where I created a filler card with my silhouette by cutting out a circle pattern and gluing cut outs of different papers in the holes. I thought it was a fun way to bring in lots of the papers from the printshop collection that I absolutely love.

I also created a recap card of the first week of school [which was only 3 days long]. I took a tag off of some new jeans I bought and adhered the tag + printshop papers to the card to create a border. Then I stitched the paper and tag in place.

January was also full of tons of snow, including multiple snow days from school, so I definitely documented those with lots of photos and journaling. [However, the really exciting snow storms didn't hit until February].

[[Please bear with me as I get used to photographing my layouts in my new apartment--although my new craftroom is bigger than before, it doesn't have as much natural light as I used to have, so I'm trying out photographing them on the living room floor for now.]]

And that was January!

Hello

Hi, I am Linda, welcome to my blog.
I am a 20 something newly wed lawyer living in New York.
In my free time I love to explore new places,
photograph everything I see,
and create pretty things to document my memories.

This blog is where I will share my little creations,
I hope you enjoy this peek into my world.

I'm starting this blog off simple, no stress.
This means that my posts will be sporadic & I will slowly add things like social media to my site.
I hope you stick around for the journey & follow me on bloglovin.