Whether you're taking a fun family vacation or a romantic trip for two, you can make your vacation experience last even longer if you create a travel memory book when you return home. It's easy and fun to organize your photos and mementos. You may find yourself reliving some of those special vacation moments.
Seven Ideas for Your Travel Memory Book
Start planning your travel memory book while you're still on vacation. That way, you can make sure you get photos of all the important events on your trip. It also helps to keep a travel journal to record your memories of the things you see and do along the way. Finally, don't forget to fill an envelope with ticket stubs, maps, programs, and other paper memorabilia.
Once you get home, use these travel scrapbooking ideas to create your album:
- Make map-tastic backgrounds: Use maps of your destination as background papers in your album. You can even include maps of museums or zoos, as well as city, state and country maps. Overlay the maps with photos of you and your traveling companions at these locations, and affix the photos and journaling blocks with stickers that resemble map tacks.
- Create a sense of place with pictures: To give your album a sense of place, take photos that you could only get on this trip. Consider taking shots of native plants and flowers, special characters or theme park rides, notable buildings and other landmarks. Include one or more photos on each page of your album, along with a description of what you did there.
- Put vacation t-shirts to good use: Do you always end up with too many t-shirts from your vacations? Make a t-shirt themed album by cutting out the designs on t-shirts collected from your trip. Treat the fabric with acid-free spray, and then use it as a background for your photos. Be sure to choose pictures that correspond with the event or location featured on the t-shirt.
- Use those fuzzy photos: When on vacation, you will probably get a few photos that are less than perfect. At the time, you might be tempted to delete the pictures from your camera, but hold off until you get home. One of those pictures might make a perfect background for a scrapbook page. Enlarge part or all of a blurry photo to show action or detail.
- Signs of fun: While you're on your trip, take photos of road signs and billboards advertising local attractions. You can enlarge these photos and cut out the signs for your scrapbook album. This is a great choice if your family is taking a road trip, since you can include pictures of signs that show the number of miles remaining until you reach your destination.
- Make a mini collage: Do you have too many photos to display on a single page? Draw a grid on your scrapbook page and then resize your photos to fit. You may need to crop them into square shapes. Next, affix the photos to the grid squares. You'll end up with a photo collage that displays all your favorite memories on a single page.
- Turn your photos into the frame: Instead of framing your photos with plain or patterned scrapbook paper, why not frame a journal block with lots of photos? To do this, choose photos that are the same size or crop them so they're all the same dimensions. Then, arrange them around the edges of your album, leaving plenty of journaling room in the middle of the page.
Don't Wait to Create
Whether your family enjoyed a Disney vacation or a Nile River cruise, you'll find that your trip inspires a host of great ideas for a travel memory book. No matter which theme you choose, be sure to create your album as soon as you get home. That way, the vacation memories will still be fresh in your mind.
