Vacation Journals

Thursday  June, 17, 2010

I had a conversation with my cousin, Khogie, the other night that reminded me of a vacation journal I'd taken with me on a trip to Florida.  This was our 4th trip to the Sanibel/Ft Meyers area, but there were a lot of  "firsts" for this trip.  I had NEVER flown before and this was going to be my first flight. (That's another blog post entirely!)  We were also taking our best friends with us, and we were going to the airport via limousine.  These were all things that I'd never done before and I really wanted to document these "firsts". 

I'm a huge procrastinator (although there's been some improvement since this vacation in 2004), so I knew I had to make some better preparations.  I decided to prepare a journal for ticket stubs, photos, receipts and other items I collected while on our trip. (At that time, we didn't have a digital camera and had to develop film!)  I had a nice, spiral bound, hardcover notebook that was perfect for the assignment because it wasn't too big or bulky to put in my carry-on.  I prepared the pages ahead of time by gluing in pre-painted and stamped watercolor paper. 

These are my journal spreads from the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL.  We had NO idea it was the Dali Centennial when we went.  Keith took the amazing boat photo.  Needless to say, it was one of my favorite days of the trip! Click photos to enlarge.

I worked on my journal a little bit every day on our vacation and I'm glad I did.  It's so much fun to pull it out now and revisit the awesome time we had with our family and friends.  I hope that you'll prepare a journal to take on your next vacation, and remember, it's not too late to pull out those old vacation photos and mementos and create a journal of vacation memories.  Happy Creating!