Travel Accordion Book - cover redo

Hello Hello
How are you fine peeps today? Lovely I hope
Today I want to share with you a mini accordion book that I made in...gosh probably 2009 although it's been long enough that I can't honestly remember...lol.
The reason I am sharing it today is because it's finally ready to share.
Although it's technically done and has been done since whenever it was that I made it, it never seemed 'finished'...not sure if that makes sense to you but if you are a crafter in any form of the word then I will assume that you do in fact know what I mean, but for those of you that do not know please allow me to show you.

Here is a 'before' photo, the mini that I will be sharing is the little book that says, "postcard". When I created the book I used that stamp (which I still own) and had stamped it on both the front and the back covers. At the time it worked for me as an ending point so that I wouldn't have to do anything further but here lately I've been noticing a lot of my older pieces seem to me to be 'unfinished'. Quite honestly it's probably more to do with my personal tastes changing but I couldn't resist the opportunity to 'finish' this one if you will.

Here is the same mini but with the unfinished covers reworked...
I started with gluing down wadded up tissue paper to create the background texture, then I added on a die cut piece to add interest, once it dried I painted both sides with black gesso and then used a stencil with texture paste - painted the final piece with some metallic paints.

A close up of the front cover where I added a trinket pin and a metal sentiment that says, 'journey' over the top of all those layers, adding on the belt and buckle seemed to make it even more fitting for what the inside pages contain...
fond memories

In total this mini has 8 photos, 6 of which are of some of the places that my husband & I had traveled to thus far. There are two in the bunch that are from right here in our home town but represent a past time that we both enjoyed; one is of us at the lake celebrating a friend's birthday (an annual event that lasted for several years) and the other is the two of us at the Royals home opener back in 2003 I believe, our 1st time together doing that (but since then we've gone to home opener 4 or 5 times). 

Here's a look at a couple of our photos: the one on the left is in Las Vegas in 2003 celebrating my sister-in-law's 40th birthday and then on the right - in Chicago in 2007 at Soldier Field watching the Chiefs/ Bears game. There was a time when a group of our friends would travel out of town at least once throughout the season to watch the Chiefs play and oh my did we have some fun but as family life has gotten more demanding and all of us getting older it's become harder and harder to 'get away'.

Here we are on the left in Charleston in 2003 on a family trip with my brother and his wife before either of us had any little kiddos - then on the right there we were on the Oregon Coast in 2004 when we got married at Heceta Head Lighthouse. By the way this is one of the most beautiful parts of our country and one of the most famous lighthouses in our nation, if ever you get the chance to stop and revel in it's beauty...do so!

Now I realize that these photos don't mean a thing to you but what I do want you to notice is the photo above, do you see how when the white tag is removed from it's pocket the photo disappears almost? This is my genius from back whenever... 
I was messin' one day and decided to play with something new...I printed my photos on transparency. Once I had them I realized belatedly that there was no real good way to adhere them to anything so...I sewed them and turned them into pockets for the tags. Pretty cool huh? Well maybe not so much nowadays but back then I sure thought so because I hadn't seen anything else like it...granted that was before we scoured the internet looking at Instagram and Pinterest and what have you...so...anyhow.

Here's a glimpse of the pages with the tags completely removed, the photos are still noticeable but much less so without the tags in place...and I just now noticed that I put the wrong info on the Charleston tag, we actually started in Savannah and so I guess I wasn't paying much attention when I wrote that down - I must fix that soon so it won't drive me crazy...lol.

Finally here is a quick look at the back and how the belt fits all the way around. Before I glued it down I added on the brads to make it appear that they held the belt in place, they do not they are merely decoration but I like the final result quite so and hopefully you do as well.

I thank you for looking and hope that you have a great day!

just B

Mini Traveling Book

Hello Hello
How's it going with all you lovelies today? Consider yourselves encouraged and inspired to live your life creatively and thoughtfully. It has served me well over the years.

For today I'm owning up to a  promise that I made. I said I would share this mini book in another post and so without further ado that's exactly what I will do. But first for those of you that missed the sister post let me give you a little back story. Our family, over the course of many years, has had the opportunity to get to know a certain young lady who graduated high school last May and is now on her way to becoming her own woman. As a mother of two young daughters I can not express to you how important it is to us to have this wonderful role model be such a part of their lives. She is very dear to all of us but our two young girls adore her greatly so for her grad gift last year I made her a unique handmade gift...this happens to be just a third of a three part gift (The second and third parts I have already shared in another post).

This is the mini book that I created for her. 
My inspiration...travel...as she was only a month and a half out from heading out of the country on a school trip for two weeks...so that was the theme I ran with for her gift. 

images.michaels.com

The beginning of this started with a Tim Holtz mini book kit (shown above) and I'll tell you it is well worth the price of admission. I think the regular price is $20 but I used my 40% off coupon at Michaels and therefore didn't even pay that much. Seriously though Tim has jammed packed this little kit full of all kinds of bits and pieces from his very long line of trinkets and bobbles so in my opinion this is one of the best in mini kits out on the market today. Now having said that I will also admit that I added quite a few extras to my mini book.

It's not so mini anymore...lol

So when you first open your kit I suggest you get into all the pieces and take a look at the overall scheme because quite literally - anything goes. Tim did have the thought to add in an instruction booklet so that anyone could figure out how to put the book part together so I just followed his instructions but where mine differs is with an extra journal tag that I made myself. I used one of the tags from the kit and traced it onto a creme colored card stock, cut it out about 8 times, then stamped each tag with journal lines using a stamp that I have in my stash.

I believe that every other page in my mini book is a journal page.

Oh and I made them double sided so that there was a ton of writing space. As I mentioned in the sister post...I have done my fair share of traveling and I am always jotting things down and trying my hardest at the end of each day to make (at the very least) a simple list of all the things we did, all the places we went, some of the food we tried, etc. Those are the things I find the most interesting to me over the years...of course that is not to say that my feelings about certain people, places or things don't get documented too, I just do those in a separate journal or notebook that way I can add in that emotional side of it later and as I see fit.

so here's what a few of the pages look like, nothing to crazy. 

Now one other part to this mini book will be her photos of course so you are probably wondering what size this is...

well the third part of the gift it's self was a gift certificate to Persnickety Prints, if you haven't heard of this online photo printing company I suggest you check them out the next time you need photos printed...they are wonderful. Now typically I print at home but I have done a couple of orders through this company and I am happy not only with their pricing but their available options as far as sizing. More specifically for this mini book I needed our dear girl to be able to print in a 2 x 2 or a 3 x 3 or even possibly a 3 x 4 and yep you guessed it, Persnickety Prints can do all of them.

One last thing I wanted to mention, not really sure if you can see it from any of my photos but this kit (another way Tim designed it in my opinion) is super interactive if you have the mind set beforehand on how you put the pages together and adhere things down. I made sure that there were lots of photo tucks and lift ups and fold downs, plus a few other things for this to become very much a conversation piece in the future and what another great way for our dear friend to relive the moments of a lifetime.

It's the gift that keeps on giving...right?
...lol... 
So there you have it...one traveling mini for a dear friend traveling.

thanks for stoppin' in and takin' a look, if you have any questions please feel free to comment me and I'll be happy to get back with you as soon as I can. I've included the link to my YouTube video on this mini book below if you're interested in watching that.

Hope you have a wonderful day and remember to live creatively and thoughtfully!

just B