Vacation art journal pages

In my last post, I mentioned my journal obsession.  I took two with me on my sister trip and worked on them in front of the view of the ocean. One was a family journal, the other was my travel one.  I did as much as I could with instant photos, drawings, doodles, and memorabilia while on the trip, and then finished with printed photos of our time there once I got home.

It helps me to do my "doodle pages" while there, for one thing because I like drawing while we sit and talk and watch the waves. For another, it helps me remember funny little things that happen and write them down.

GEEZER ALERT-I'M GOING TO SOUND CRANKY NOW:

"My Pleasure" was a phrase we all decided we liked. While staying at a fancy hotel, we noticed that employees don't use the annoying term, "no problem" when you say thank you to them. They respond, "my pleasure" or even the good old fashioned, "you're welcome." Which I rarely hear anywhere any more.

We went out for lunch one day, a treat from my husband,  and we sent him a text to thank him. He responded "my pleasure" not knowing that was just what we had been talking about. 

This silly doodle page is from our Great Flamingo Hunt.

At least that is what it was in my mind.

I saw bright pink birds fly across our beach and Bobbie loves flamingos, so we raced outside to get photos.  When we got close we were trying to be sneaky, and I imagined hearing Elmer Fudd singsong "Kill the Wabbitt, Kill the Wabbit".  

So, I changed it to "Get the Birwdie" and tromped around like Elmer.

I'm afraid the birds were spoonbills, not flamingos, but it was still a fun hunt.

On every sister trip, I find a photo to turn use as a fairy picture. 

This one of Sissy at Venice beach hunting shark teeth looked like a good fairy opportunity too.

I wrote the word, "blessings" under the photo of her handful of teeth, because that was what was inscribed on her gold band, and also the day was filled with the blessings of being with my sisses.

An actual tooth was glued to the banner I added.

More teeth and a small shell were glued to an instant photo of the day, I saved the label from a coke I'd bought (Nathan!), and added a picture of one of our matching shirts.  

All of it was done over the text of the book page, that I'd dry brushed paint onto. But none of it was planned and it all looked off balance, so I drew in a shark behind it all to tie it together. 

My art journals are a mix.  I use photos of the trip, scraps of things I've picked up along the way, (brochures, coasters, hotel soap wrappers, tickets, etc), doo dads, charms, flowers, lace, drawings,and some pages are just for fun, like this one.

The book itself is one of the altered book kits I have in the Boutique, including card stock pages printed with old text scanned from vintage horoscope and fortune telling books.  They made an interesting background for an October journal. 

This little Witchy Girl was in the kit, but I added the shells and some dragonfly wings from one of the ginormus dragonflies that dwelled in the area. They were as large as helicopters.

You might notice that when I scrapbook, I don't care if things are acid free. I doubt if wings plucked from a dead bug would qualify as being archival quality.

Here is an example of using a hotel room coaster in my book.  It is simply attached with washi tape on the outside and again on the inside to make a hinge.

(the picture above is doctored up by Bobbie, she changed three of the hags into the three of us)

The coaster opens up to hold a cartoon of three witches that Bobbie brought, and a picture of the three of us as witches too.

Have you seen the rainbow film available at Michaels for instant cameras? It makes for a nice change from the white framed pictures.  I thought these colors were pretty with the vintage Florida postcard I'd picked up on one of our antiquing outings.  Above that is some coordinating washi tape as a border and an old, ribbon flower wreath as a frame for a cut out picture of Bobbie. 

I rubbed a pink ink pad over the edges of the paper to tie in all the soft colors.

A couple more of the rainbow instant pictures went into the last page of the book. The grand fairies posed for me as I was trying out the film.

And Sugarwings made this "bye bye" card for me as a farewell for the trip, so that is what their pictures went into.

Another item I used from the vacation was the tissue paper from a shopping bag, glued down as a background.  

This page features photos Bobbie brought of our grandma's trailer on Bee Ridge Rd, Sarasota.  The old book that I'd brought with me to tear up and use in the journal, had this little story about a sea shell "home" in it and I thought that went along nicely with the trailer pictures.

More things I saved were the key card holder from the Pink Palace, and the wrist band we were given there to use the resort facilities.

Some pictures, I like to cut out the person, other times I like to save the backgrounds.  A nice mix is what I go for.  

I'd preferred it if the Pink Palace had more PINK goodies for me to use, but on the other hand, the orange and black were perfectly fine considering I was doing a Halloween inspired album, right?

Since I had turned around and went on another trip as soon as I got home from this one, I included both in the same journal.

Especially since both looked great together with the Halloween theme I had going.

Last year's travel journal was similar, I'd gone from a beach vacation with my sisses straight to Vermont for the the Guncles' wedding.  (There was no trip home in between for that one, and I can tell you, that the packing wasn't easy for such varied weather!)

We have already booked our condo on Siesta Sands for next year, looks like this Sister Trip is going to become an annual thing.  And it looks like I'll be starting a collection of travel books for our visits!