5 Vacation Faves 2017: a mini-album

I mentioned before that my family had the vacation of a lifetime this summer: we traveled to Hawaii, Oahu specifically. As I do with every vacation, I made a mini album celebrate our family's favorites on vacation. This year was a little different, however.

First, I made a vacation travel kit to take with on vacation:

The case was my husband's and it came as packaging for an iPad case he's bought. It was magnetic and had been given to me by my husband, who thought I might want to use it for a project (he was right!). I dug through my travel stash for scraps that went together, trimmed them to fit each side, then glued them in with Mod Podge. (One note: the case was glossy, and the papers had some trouble sticking down, even when I smoothed them down. I think next time I would scuff the case surface before Mod Podging the paper on.)

After I adhered the paper and it dried, I added more Mod Podge to seal it. Here's what the case looks like:

Because the cover was a mix of scraps, I added some tags to make it look purposeful.

I gesso'd the corners and did some scruffing on the edges of the paper in anticipation of this kit getting banged up a bit on travels.

Here's what I packed in the kit:

I took this on the plane with me, though I put the adhesive and scissors in my checked bag. (I also packed a glue stick.) The baggy of products on the left came from the Making Memories Panorama collection, which was sort of tropical themed. I liked the small size of the chipboard tag album and planned on making my mini album in it. I made the album on our final morning in Hawaii, trimming pieces of maps from our tour guides to back the chipboard on every page except the cover. I left that blank and completed that and added photos when I returned.

And here's the album:

When I got home, I asked everyone what their five favorites were, and I journaled, then I printed photos for each page.

Since the cover had textures on it, I painted it before decorating it. I did this when I got home. I used two shades of clue and white, and I painted in circles to mimic the patterns. Here's the inside pages.

Next time I think I won't embellish the photo pages on vacation; too hard to prise the stickers up to place the photos!

Last year I think I forgot to get a solo picture of myself, so I had to cobble one from a group shot for my mini-album. This year I made sure to take selfies as well. I belong in the vacation album too.

More crinkly stickers from prising them up. Gah.

Since my mother was on the vacation with us, she got a page too! I love her very specific list.

Thank you for visiting! I am so glad that I made a travel kit and look forward to using it every year. I will swap out different products based on the location we're going to. I think I used everything on this mini but the stamps and ink, and that's because of what I backed the mini-album pages with.

This is one of my favorite projects every year, and it's my family's favorite too. I hope this gives you an idea for recording your family's best memories from vacations.