Family travel journal

We'll be off soon on a little family jaunt west to Alberta to see dinosaurs and mountains, mineral waters and waterfalls, and if we're lucky, bears and maybe a scorpion. Our last major road trip was 3 years ago, to North Carolina. 

We made a family journal at that time, from a purchased journal of which I altered the covers. I collaged handmade and mulberry papers on the covers, inserted a photo taken on our trip into a precut window, and rubber stamped the letters on the spine. 

We made a few pockets for travel brochures as we needed them, included maps, stickers, found objects from nature, postcards and then a few photos after our return.

It made such a wonderful keepsake, as everyone contributed their writings and artwork (the kids were 6 & 8 at the time).


I thought at the time that they may have felt they were coerced into contributing, but luckily they don't remember it that way, and we are all happy to look back on these precious memories.




So I asked the family if we should do another family journal for this trip, and was answered with a unanimous "YES"! This time, I've handbound a book, with maps from Alberta on the covers. The letters are made with handcut rubber stamps. This one is a little larger than the travel journals in my Etsy shop, with pockets on the front and back signatures (or sections of pages) and some large envelopes bound into several sections as well. These will be great for any mementos we collect along the way. It's coptic bound, with 2 colours of linen thread, which was quite easy to do! For the pages, I've used some salvaged semi-gloss papers from printer's off cuts, which seems to take pen and ink fairly well. We'll give it the road test, and there may be more of these in my shop in the future.