My holiday journal, Sicily June 2015

Hello today I am Guest Designer over at Country View. I was delighted to be invited by Chris a couple of months ago and when I was told the challenge theme was to be "On your travels" I thought that I would make a holiday journal for my recent holiday in Sicily. If you are a first time visitor here you may like to see this post I posted when I was away...I really was crafting in the shadow of Mount Etna. Please pop over to the Country View challenge blog and joint the fun. The theme of "On your travels" runs until the 31st July and one lucky entrant wins a 20 pound voucher to spend online at Country View Crafts online shop.

 I decided to make my own journal rather than use a bought one. I have already shared a couple of post as to how my pages were created. I crafted in the the shadow of Etna here made a seaside tag here and did some sketching here if you have missed these posts.

Here it the cover. It is mountboard underneath and wrapped in gorgeous Italian paper which I bought in town.

I used lots of dies, made some embossed tickets and a tag and added the lettering myself using a white pen.

Before I started my journal I first decided what shape and size I wanted it to be. I wanted my pages unbound so that I could fit extras in without worrying about whether it would still close. I decided that cutting an A4 sheet of card in half was a really simple option so that was the size of my pages.I bought myself a cropodile to make holes and used 3 book rings to hold my journal together. I actually bought larger ring binders in the end.  The final ones I used are 2" diameter.  I made myself several inky pages for my journal before I went away.

Here are a few of the blank pages.

 I did not take a lot of kit away with me but I did take a pencil case with pens/Inktense pencils and ordinary pencils with which I could doodle and index cards to jot things down on and use for little sketches.

 I also decided to buy a postcard every day so that I could keep a record of what we did each day.Obviously I could not finish my journal whilst away as I needed to print off my photos when I got home (they were all taken on my phone as sadly I lost my camera on day 4. A long story but I was able to replace it this Thursday through the insurance so all good). I may even invest in one of those little instant Fuji Instax mini cameras which take credit card sized photos one day?
I always love collecting ephemera when I am on holiday so I found lots of items to use.......maps, serviettes, tickets, stamps, bottle tops and all sorts.
I did make several pages whilst away and when I got home it was time to make a front and back cover and start to put everything together.

I bought this gorgeous wrapping paper in a stationary shop...it just shouted Italian to me and was thick and sturdy. I knew I wanted to use it for my covers. I used mount board for the covers and glued the paper in place.

So I am sure you want to see my finished piece.
I obviously cannot share every page, plus I will spare my bare chested Hb's photos here. These are a few samples from inside.

Yes my doodling featured too, the woman on the plane next to me did rather look sideways wondering what on earth I was doing but it's a great way to pass the time on a flight. You may recognise the insignia above as Tui....we flew with this air line from Gatwick.

The tonic water top is from our Gin and tonic and there are some tops from the local Italian beers too which my Hb flattened for me. 

I created lots of little envelopes for tickets and small bits.

I bought a watercolour from a street artist which I cut to size and added a little handmade envelope with the info inside. Small brown envelopes are easy to stamp and decorate.I made tab from hessiam and added some 

You will have seen some of my little sketches in my other posts but this is one more

I loved making this. Ever since I was a tiny girl I have made holiday scrapbooks where I stuck in all sorts of ephemera. This is just a big girl's arty version. It was a real labour of love but worth every minute.

If anyone would like any other info please email me, I am quite happy to answer any questions. One of the best decisions I made was to write a postcard or letter every day. It's really hard to remember what you did when you get home. Also the little sketches made there were really fun and when I look at them I get transported back to that moment. I must admit my darling Hb was a star and was quite happy to wait whilst I got out my pencils and made my little sketches. He even had a go at a couple himself. We really did have a wonderful holiday. Roll on the next one.

I would like to enter my holiday journal into the following challenges;

Art Journal post and postage
Addicted to stamps anything goes
A vintage journey destinations
Die cut Divas summer and patriotism
Noor! UK something old something new my old are my seahorse dies, my new is my Italian paper I used for my cover.
Vintage stamping travel
That Craft Place mixed media
Stamping sensations feature a creature I feature lots of creatures in my journal but crabs and seahorses crop up frequently.
The Artistic stamper tags there are lots of different tags throughout my journal including on the cover.


Thanks for visiting. I have a second guest design post for Noor! UK here today, just click the link here if you would like to see what I have created for Tracy.

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x