Big, Fat, Travel Journal and how-to's- Part Two and some digital photo vacation tips

Where were we? Oh yes, in the middle of the travel journal.  This book is made the way I did the Nature's Blessing Journals for the swap, and there are directions on how to make these type of books from scratch in my online tutorial, here.

In the tutorial, are  ideas on finishing pages too, if you'd like more details to make one of your own.

This page is showing the inside of a card that Guncle Randy made for me. So I added pictures to it from our Bachelor Party Craft Day.

The polka dot and glitter tape borders are from the dollar bin at Target, what a deal!

Here it is with the card that he made for me closed.  Greeting cards are great to add to journals and scrapbooks, you glue down the back and can add to the inside of them.

During our craft day in Mt Dora, we worked on Randy's wedding decor. So I used some of the fall toned paper from the projects to make this page. Over it, is a leaf (outlined in brown marker for a shadow effect) from the velvet hat he bought,  instant photos from that day, a heart shaped shell I found on the beach,  and one of the mini garlands we were making for his centerpieces.

I tied a bit of baker's twine to the two little wooden skewer sticks, glued them down, then glued the garland pieces right on to the string.  For the centerpiece, I punched holes in the leaves with words and tied them to the string, but this way seemed to be a better fit for the book.

The words, "Mount Dora" were cut out of a brochure we picked up.

On the adjacent page, I used an October book page from a garden journal to make a background and pocket. I inked the edges in green, and highlighted "October" with Stickles glitter.

With Tim Holtz Distress markers, I drew a pink cottage and Karen's sweet poodle. I like those markers for this kind of work, because you can still see through them to the text below.  For detail, I used a black ink pen and opaque white  marker.

The pocket is perfect for business cards I gathered while shopping downtown.

Another way to use greeting cards, is to punch holes in them and tie them directly into the book itself, instead of gluing them down to the pages.  At the Ringling Bros. museum, I picked up a couple circus cards and tied them into my journal.  I covered the inside with brochure pages from the museum, added photos, and colorful rick rack trim.

I thought the polka dot tape was festive and circus-y too.

The sunshine yellow flower got a clown face center.

I thought that the outside of the card was plenty cute, and left it as it was. A few ruffles was all it needed.  Not every bit of the book needs to be covered. 

On the opposite page, I used the museum grounds map as a background for photos. The pictures are outlined with brown to make them stand out a bit.

This is a map of the coast, with a few photos, accented with polka dot tape.  I cut the figures out of one picture and shadowed them by outlining with the brown marker.  And added a ruffle and a half flower to the bottom.  

When I do the backgrounds, I like torn edges, and keep it all a little rough, not perfectly cut.  I also like to have lots of peek-a-boo bits like the ruffle and flower petals.

This one was fun.  Bobbie and Sissy were posed in front of a giant lobster, and I slipped their cut out silhouettes under a netting from an old hat, and added my picture over it for dimension.

The netting is held down at the top and bottom with a piece of glued down ribbon.

Here is a close up to see the details.

I might have liked this one better if I'd used a blue background, but I layered it back at the hotel room, then when I got home and went through the photos, these are the ones I thought would be cute on this page. Brown is okay, and since it wasn't planned ahead, I had to make it work. But if I had it to do over again, I'd have used blue.

Sometimes it is nice to have some simple pages, like this travel brochure page with a ruffled ribbon and a single outlined photo, then an unadorned greeting card from the circus.

Here, I have folded a piece of paper in half, and glued down the back of it. Ribbons are glued to the front and back to make a tie, and charms we found at a Sarasota bead shop are added to the ends of the ribbons.

I bought a vintage photo album at a junk shop and the beach pictures from it were the perfect addition to many of  my pages.  One is used here with lace medallions as trim.

When the folded blue paper is untied and opened,you can see the picture inside.

Another full photo with a beach view is above it, and is outlined with blue.  The figure next to it is cut out for variation.   I find it more interesting to have different shapes and sizes of pictures than to show the same beach background over and over, exactly the same behind each person.

Now, I just love beaches to death, but for the sake of the art journal, this layout is a little more interesting than a row of same size, same background pictures.

A stip of polka dot tape makes a simple, and easy border. With a marker and white opaque ink, I've highlighted the words, "sea princesses" that I saw in the text of the old paper that I was using.

One afternoon of our trip was spent driving around and looking up past addresses of our Great Grandma Nellie, Great Aunt Caroline, and Grandma Smith.  

When I saw this sheet music with Nellie in the title, I knew I wanted to use it for this day. I added a vintage ocean picture, and cut out three girls from very old magazine to glue over it, then wrote the addresses we'd looked up on the rest of the paper.  

 I doodled shells, and hearts around the words, and then added some glitter and a rhinestone.

Part of my trip included a flight from Florida to New Hampshire for the Guncles wedding. While it makes an odd color palette for the book ( sunny beach tones and fall hues) it was even weirder to pack the suitcases for both climates.

Here, I have some pumpkin themed tissue paper crumpled up and glued down as a background, and over that, I've added photos and some velvet flowers from a hat Randy found while we were out shopping in Mt. Dora.

The adjacent page matches, and has a banner cut out of the wedding announcement.

A photo from the ceremony is layered over the program, with some lace trim, and orange velvet ribbon, topped off with more blooms and an autumn butterfly.

This page is a plain, wallpaper backdrop, with four fun photos. I left all four of them intact, but notice that I did cut them to slightly different sizes? Each is outlined in ink to make them stand out a bit, and one page has some doodles down the side of the pictures.

 Here are some tips I follow for digital photos while on vacation:

• Pack your battery charger!
• If you are using your camera phone, edit the pics with something like the Snapseed ap before posting them. Crop, brighten and sharpen for better photos.  
• For your phone or camera both, DELETE all noticeably bad pictures daily. Blurry, unfocused, bad angles, snaps should   be cleaned out to save space, and to save time when you are ready to upload to your computer at home.
• I email myself the photos I want to keep from my phone, then open them on my computer when I get home.  I then delete most of the photos from the phone, so that I don't have so many on there that I can't find the faves that I want to see.
• Take a lot more photos than you think you will need.  This will give you more to chose from.  
• When you get back home and upload, be selective with the pictures.  If you've taken hundreds, narrow it down to dozens. Really.  I know it is hard, but honestly, you will enjoy having the best ones to keep and you don't need so many duplicates.  Pretend you are at an optician's exam.  Remember how the Dr. will ask, "This one? Or this one?"  With multiple photos of the same scene, clean out by comparing them one at a time, to chose the best couple from the multitudes.
• But watch out for hidden goodies!  If you have a group shot and one person has made a face, another has her eyes closed, and a third is drop dead gorgeous, consider cropping the picture to be a close up beauty shot of just the stand out person. 
• Here is a big one for me, I tend to tilt my camera a lot. So, I have to be careful to straighten each picture before cropping.  Its very distracting to see the ocean in the background sliding away to the side of the picture.  A straight horizon line with water is very important.  Same with ceilings and walls for indoor shots.  
• After straightening, figure out what needs cropped. Crop some pics in close, and leave the backgrounds in others.  You'll want variety.  But if there is a big expanse of ceiling showing, ten feet of driveway in front of your subjects, or a plain, boring wall, get rid of it. Keep backgrounds that are attractive, or tell a story about where you are. But if the backdrop is unnecessary, crop and focus on the subject of the picture.
• I like Picmonkey for my editing. The site is self explanatory and easy to use. 
• When editing, use Tooth Whitening sparingly.  Yes, make the subject more attractive, but don't make them look unnatural. Same with Eye Bright.  And while I'm sure everyone would appreciate less wrinkles, please don't iron out the faces to look like the person is one of those bad, "After" pictures in a spread on plastic surgery gone wrong.
• My favorite use for Wrinkle Remover is to blur backgrounds to really make the foreground pop.
• If there is a glaring color that stands out in the background, like an orange sign peeking through a pretty tree scene or a bright blue shirt on someone walking by in the distance, I go to Eye Color, and chose gray to draw over the bright color and tone it down.  I don't want the veiwer's eye to be led to something that stands out and distracts from the subject of the photo.
• If you are planning on using the pics in a scrapbook like I did, make sure you leave room for cutting them down to various sizes after they are printed. If you overly crop, and then print them all the same size, you have no space left to cut them down to make some smaller for the album. And I think that the albums look much more interesting with a mix of sizes.

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ps- Want to come to my cottage studio for a Christmas class? I have two available, how to see you here!

Comments

[Claudia E]

Karla,

I love this! Thanks so much for sharing your creativity and all of your wonderful tips!

[Karla Nathan]

Thanks, Claudia. I have one more journal post from this book coming up.

[jeanie]

Beautiful book, Karla. And every tip is a real gem!

[Sheila Rumney]

Love your book! All the details are so gorgeous... and the memories precious. I am so bummed that the Christmas class days, just don't work for my schedule :( this year! Would love to have been there crafting away as all the projects look gorgeous!

[Karla Nathan]

Well, durn, Sheila! Our times are never quite right. Id love to see you here sometime!