Look Inside My Travel Journals
We’ve had a tough winter in Massachusetts with 7ft of snow falling in the past 3 weeks. We’re all stir crazy and sick of the white stuff. To cheer myself up today (and remind myself of sunnier weather), I looked through my travel journals from last year. And I thought I’d share a few of pages on my blog.
My style for travel journals is clean and simple. I swoon the books I see on Pinterest with watercolored sketches and layers of collage, but for me it’s more important to finish. I know that if I attempted something more ambitious I’d get caught in the perfection trap and have piles of unfinished projects.
The first one is from our trip to the Cotswolds, England last summer. I used one of my own 6″ x 9″ spiral bound travel journals with a map of the England on the covers. I combined journaling with postcards, photographs and ephemera that I collected.
This gorgeous cow and the title is cut from a paper bag that I got from the farm’s store.
The page below has part of a brochure, a section of plastic wrist band and an egg box label.
I love to collect dried flowers, leaves and grasses on my trips. Glassine envelopes are great places to store them.
The second journal is a Moleskin book that I used for a trip to Portland last Spring. I watercolored and stamped the pages before the trip, and added the writing and ephemera while I was there.
On these pages you’ll see business cards, a pin (with pin removed), coffee cup wrappers, a clothing tag, a sugar packet and a coaster.
I hope you enjoyed this look inside my travel journals. Feel free to link to yours in the comments – I’d love to see what you’ve created. If you’re planning a trip in the near future and need a travel journal, check out my free e-book.
June 27, 2016 @ 12:32 pm
I made a travel journal recently. I used matt board for the covers, and book binding repair tape (3″ wide) for the spine. It has three signatures made from a variety of recycled pages. My husband helped me put it together. It was very challenging. We did a variation on a straight/pamphlet stitch.
It was very sticky, punching holes in the repair tape. Can you suggest a sturdy material for a spine? Is the book stronger if you use one big piece of heavy paper for the cover(s)? Would love some advice! Thank you!
July 5, 2016 @ 10:36 pm
If you want to have hard covers like the mat board then you’re on the right track by using a soft spine and sewing your signatures to it. But it’s hard to punch and sew through sticky things! Instead of the tape, you could use a variety of materials for the spine, such as book cloth or sturdy fabric. But what I would be tempted to use is Tyvek. You know those tyvek envelopes that you get in the post office – they’re super strong but thin plastic. You can buy roll of the stuff but I would just recycle an envelope. It can decorated with acrylic inks if you don;t like the plain white.
July 6, 2016 @ 11:47 am
I love the idea of Tyvek! That stuff is indestructible. I’m sure I can rustle up an envie somewhere.
By acrylic inks, I’m guessing you mean something like these:
http://www.dickblick.com/products/liquitex-professional-acrylic-ink/
Thanks for your help!