We all love to preserve our finest memories, and in the day of digital media, there are so many technologically advanced and brilliant ways of doing just that. However, I think some of these new methods lack the authenticity that comes with printed photographs in an album. For many, our travels are the fondest memories we have, and many of us tend to take a lot of photographs while we are out exploring the globe. Like so many other people, I also often bring home physical souvenirs from my travels, such as postcards, ticket stubs, and boarding passes. Why would you want these items to end up in a time capsule collecting dust, or worse, a trash bag?
After my trip to Sri Lanka this year, I decided to have my photos from the trip printed so I could put them in an album. When I realized I also had souvenirs and crafts from volunteer projects that I wanted to keep, I thought I’d make an old-fashioned scrapbook. I’d had an empty ‘Wanderlust’ scrapbook lying around for ages that I grabbed from Indigo when it was on sale. Finally, I had a use for it.
First, I organized all of my photos chronologically and put any extra photos into categories of their own. I started with the day I left Canada and ended with the day I left Sri Lanka. Then I decided where I would put the souvenirs I collected. I also gathered up any scrapbooking supplies I could find in the house. I only wanted to use what I had instead of spending money on supplies I will probably never use again.
When I had all of my photos and souvenirs organized, I started playing around with page layouts. I twisted and turned photos to see which ways I could organize them on the page and doodled in captions and embellishments. I had some stickers that I used for headers and others I scribbled in myself. I spent two whole evenings on this activity (side note: it was an awesome way to wind down after work and school); I wanted it to look cohesive and coordinated, but not perfect. For me, this was not about perfection, it was about self-expression and representing my memories of the trip.
Eventually, I had filled in all of my photos. Some pages were plain and minimalistic, others were jam-packed. I did not fill in all of the pages– there are a bunch of empty ones at the back which was annoying at first, but perhaps soon I will have another trip to fill those pages with.
The purpose of this article was to provide you with some inspiration for your scrapbooking endeavours. I hope it helped. We would love to see some photos of your travel scrapbooks. Email them to us or tag us in your photos on social media, @twowildtides on Facebook and Instagram. We can’t wait to see what gorgeous creations you have!
xoxo,
char
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