Open to creativity

About a dozen people of all ages showed up for my workshop at Southwest Maker Fest Saturday.

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I talked a little about making minimalist travel journals that you can start during your trip. Then I gave everyone an envelope with odds and ends to represent what you might pick up on your travels — attraction flyers, paper scraps, coffee sleeves, Travelcraft Journal stickers, etc. Then I set them loose to create something that told the story of their day.

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Because the room I was assigned to was in a children’s museum, some of the parents assumed it was a “kid thing” and were surprised when I handed them an envelope to create one too. Also, the open-endedness of the project freaked a few people out a bit at first.

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But, by the end, everyone — kids and adults — really got creative and made some fabulous things. They journaled, they drew, some of them went outside the booklet format and got architectural, building things with their materials.

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I love seeing people open up to creativity.

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Microblog Mondays

Paper bag journal: part 1(ish)

paper bag scrapbook pages

The idea of collecting trip mementos in paper bags has stuck with me since I saw it in Anna Corba’s Vintage Paper Crafts awhile ago, and I wanted to give it a try during our Colorado trip this summer.

art journal pages on paper bags

Last year when we went on our Epic California Road Trip, we picked up a postcard for each day and wrote what we did on it. However, this time, I knew we couldn’t rely on always being somewhere with postcards for sale. Instead, I jotted down my notes about each day on brown paper sacks and tucked the day’s mementos (maps, cards, travel information, etc.) inside. I also collected a flower for (almost) every day to press during the trip and clip onto the pages later.

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As we were getting ready to leave, I threw a stack of paper bags, pens, scissors and glue sticks into another paper bag. While Phillip drove, I numbered the bags 1-7 with the day of the week and wrote the date on each. Before I went to bed, the next day on the road, or whenever I found a moment, I would write about the day and doodle around the number with something related to what we did.

My notes got shorter toward the end of the trip, but the point was to write something – not to write a novel. I brought scrapbooking supplies, but I didn’t end up using them. The days were so packed it was all I could do to keep up with my basic journalling. I decided I could put things together when I got home and just kept the items I collected (except the flowers I was pressing) in each day’s bag.

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If you wanted to give this a try, here’s what you need to create your own paper bag scrapbook:

  • A paper lunch bag for each day of your trip, plus one to store them all in. (Okay, maybe a few extra, just in case.)
  • Nice, archival-safe pens for journalling, doodling, or simply making a list of interesting things you saw that day.

Optional:

  • Clothespins or clips to keep bags together and/or clip things on outside of bags
  • Additional scrapbooking supplies (scissors, glue stick or double stick tape, etc.).
  • If you plan to collect a leaf or flower for each day, check out How to press flowers while traveling.

paper bag scrapbook pages

Now we’re back, and I have a record of what we did each day, a book full of flowers being pressed, and the other odds and ends I picked up along the way sorted by day. 

Phillip says that if I never got the rest done, we’d still have a nice record of our trip. Me being me, I want it all finished and awesome. I’m still want to print more photos, weed out the bag contents, put the pressed flowers in clear plastic bags and attach them to each page. I don’t have a great track record with finishing scrapbook projects. But I’m crossing my fingers this post will have a Part 2!

How to press flowers while traveling

Flower pressed on book page.

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Pressing wildflowers is a great way to remember the landscape you’ve traveled. You create a simple souvenir, a keepsake with more dimension than a photo.

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Before you go/materials list:

1. Find a book you don’t mind destroying. You can use an outdated catalog or phone book, but just make sure it’s not too bulky to pack! This will be your portable flower press.

2. Find a rubber band that will fit around the book to keep it shut or several clips (or clothespins) that can hold a group of pages together.

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On the road:

3. Look for leaves or “flatter” flowers with fewer layers (think daisies over roses) along the road, trails, or other places you visit. Pick a one or two or a few. Note where you found it/them or take a photo of the spot, so you can remember later. You may want to pick a flower for each day of your trip. After you pick one, I’d recommend doing a quick check for bugs. And, of course, don’t go picking on plants where it’s prohibited, like National Parks or people’s gardens.

4. Set the flower on top of one of your book pages. (If you’re picking one each day, you can press the first day’s flower in Chapter One, the second day’s in Chapter Two, etc. Or just make a note on whichever page you press the flower on.) Carefully close the book over the flower, so it’s positioned the way you want it to be pressed. You can put a few flowers on a page, but don’t put them on adjacent pages.

Flower pressed on book page.

5. Band the book or clip a handful of pages around the flower to keep anything from falling out. Stick the book under your luggage, in between large items in your pack, or wherever you can put the most pressure on it.

6. If you add more flowers, place them in a different part of the book, so you aren’t moving the first one and are allowing additional pressure/weight between them. (Again, starting near the front and working your way back might be helpful.) Also, you want plenty of pages in between to absorb any moisture the flowers release while drying.

Stack of books.

7. Give them a few weeks. When ready, flowers will be thin, dry and papery. If you get home before they’re ready, stick the book at the bottom of a stack of books or some heavy object that you won’t be moving around. Just don’t forget about them!

8. Pressed flowers and leaves would be a beautiful addition to your trip scrapbook or framed with your travel photos! They’ll be pretty fragile, so you may want to put behind glass, slip into plastic sleeves, or cover with contact paper.

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Confession

California scrapbook

Is it too early for a confession? I realize this is only post #2 of the Travelcraft Journal project, and we’re still getting to know each other. But let’s build this thing on honesty.

Before anyone gets the idea that I’m some sort of crafting goddess (you were thinking that, right? anyone? Bueller?), I should set the record straight on something. I’ve never finished an entire scrapbook or travel journal. Photos stuck into album sleeves, sure. But that’s it.

Yep. I know. Shocking.

I’ve done scrapbooky things – made pages, sketched layouts, obsessively kept ticket stubs and other bits and pieces that should totally go into a scrapbook. But completing an entire book? That hasn’t happened. (Yet.)

scrapbooking paper covering table
This is not a mess. It’s a process. Somewhere here is the color of my trip. I just need to spread everything out so I can find it.

One thing that’s gotten me closer, though, is not waiting until I’m back from a trip to start scrapbooking. I take along some cardstock, nice pens, and a glue stick or double-sided tape, and get a jump start on journaling and putting those little bits and pieces together, while we’re still on the road.

Now, I’ve seen Smash books and other scrapbooks you fill in as you go. Love the idea, but – maybe it’s the designer in me (or the perfectionist) – I’m really into picking out paper colors that match my day, choosing the format, and all that good stuff. (That design control freakiness probably doesn’t help with the whole not-getting-the-scrapbook-done thing either.)

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I thought this was an original idea until I checked with Google.

Me: Best idea evar! Scrapbooking As You Go! Bet I’m the first person this has ever occurred to, right?!

Google: Nope. There are 5 people doing exactly that on Page One alone. Plus 30,096 other things that are vaguely related that you should definitely know about.

Me: Oh. I guess I’m not as original as I thought. I should still totally buy the domain name for scrapbookasyougo.com, though, right?

Namecheap: Absolutely.

Ok, that just got real geeky real fast. Anyway. Even though other people did independently come up with the idea, I still embraced it. In fact, the whole concept of Scrapbooking As You Go was a big part of last year’s craft blog idea. I was planning to launch it right before our Epic California Roadtrip, and document the process of scrapbooking about the trip during the trip. (Uber meta.)

CA-scrapbook

While I did scrapbook during (and after) the trip, I still haven’t gotten the whole thing finished. And I only published one post on the craft blog.

But I held onto the question of how to bring what you enjoy doing into your busy life, and that’s a big part of this project.

Now I just need to finish a scrapbook. Maybe I should just start making them smaller.