Travelers Notebook spreads for Fancy Pants Designs

Hi there scrappy friends,

I'm back with some new projects for Fancy Pants Designs today!

Last month we were on holiday and since I can't seem to exist without scrapping, I took some supplies with me and worked on my Traveller's Notebooks (4 in total!). I love documenting our travels in real time. I'm really forgetful, so this helps me keep all information in one place that I'd like to remember. Or if we happen to visit these places again, we remember what we liked and so on.

I mainly used the awesome Hello Sunshine collection for these notebooks, but I also mixed in supplies from my stash, so here I am only sharing a few pages that are using mostly this collection.

First I made my inserts. To make it easy for me on vacation, I used some premade inserts with heavier papers. I like to cover all my blank pages with either patterned paper or white cardstock, I rarely leave the background as is. Because of this, I normally only keep 10 pages in one insert and remove the rest (I use these extra pages to create new inserts), this gives me 11 spreads. Of course you can do it totally differently, this is just the way that works best for me.

I also cover and decorate my inserts. For this I use a sheet of 12x12 paper and cut it to size and adhere it to the original cover. Then I add whatever I find, die cuts, chipboard, tags, stickers, enamel dots etc.

Now the fun can begin! Adding photos, papers, embellies to the pages! No rhyme or reason, I just went with the flow. This time I was more prepared than on our last holiday and pre-cut a lot of cut files in sizes that I knew would fit into these notebooks. For me cut files add a little extra to my projects, simple embellishments if I don't have anything else. Plus, they are flat, that's a plus when it comes to TNs!

So without further ado, here's a few pictures.

As you see, there's many many ways to decorate your pages. I like them full of color and patterns, but there is no right or wrong way to do this. You can use lots of scraps, even to cover the pages in different ways, or punching shapes like circles or hexagons etc. I encourage you to give TNs a try! It is really fun working on them. I swear I can't wait for our next travel to be able to work on more :D.

Should you have any questions regarding these pages, just leave a message here or my Instagram. I'm always happy to help!

I hope you like these pages and are inspired to get scrapping! Thank you for stopping by today!
Till next time,

X

July Kit at Scrapbook Werkstatt

Hi there,

I can't believe how fast the months are going?! Here we are again with new kit projects for Scrapbook Werkstatt. Unbelievable.

The July kit is a very bright, summer kit, hence its name "Glühwürmchen" ("Firefly"). I mean look at that neon yellow card stock from Bazzill!

Here's what you get in this kit:

• 11 sheets of 12x12" patterned papers/card stock from Pink Paislee Summer Lights, Scrapbook Werkstatt, Crate Paper Oasis and Bazzill
• 1 pack of thickers from American Crafts
• 1 pack of die cuts from Scrapbook Werkstatt
• 1 flair button from Scrapbook Werkstatt
• exclusive clear stamp set from Scrapbook Werkstatt
• 1 paper clip from Websters Pages
• 1 sticker sheet from Pretty Little Studio

And below are the projects I created with this kit. Hope you like! For the travellers notebook cover and inserts you can find a tutorial here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

X

My first Travelers Notebook - I am HOOKED!

Hey there scrappy friends,

Long post alert :)

For a long time I didn't know what to do with or even what to think of Travelers' Notebooks. I didn't look into the topic but often I saw different spreads somewhere in social media. Everybody uses them for different purposes it seems!

Then we booked our summer holiday, which will be kind of a road trip in the US - we are trying to visit several places while we are there. First of all, I don't feel like I'd survive without crafting for almost 3 weeks. And then I remembered TNs! As in TRAVELERS notebooks! Of course, I could use some for our travels! Cos, you know, I am very forgetful...My dad remembers every single town, restaurant, museum etc we have ever visited, possibly with dates too. Me on the other hand...I don't remember where I was yesterday. At least this way I will be able to remember :).

So when we went on spring break I thought I'd do a test run with the TN. Trying to figure out what works for me, what supplies I should take on summer holiday. I am really happy I did this! I did learn a lot. More about this a bit later.

I figured I could buy an Instax camera and take a picture or two every day and document our activities, which restaurant we liked (in case we ever go back!), what we've seen. I did just that...Bought myself an Instax Mini 70, (God how I hate Amazon! I bought the camera only 6 weeks ago and it was 30 eur more!) in yellow, because obviously the color is the most important thing, ha! In retrospect I wish I hadn't...The camera is a lot of fun to use; watching the picture develop, especially with a kid that knows nothing of Polaroid cameras is kinda cool. Apparently my almost 25-year-old nephew has never seen a Polaroid camera either. Am I really THIS old?!

I love that the Mini 70 has a small mirror for taking selfies - which of course is a whole lot of fun for an 8-year-old! But then most of the photos are just very bad quality. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting a lot, but in a lot of pictures you can barely tell what you should see. Faceless people. Barely there landscapes. No colors! NO COLORS! Of course I took photos of everything with my other camera too, but still, I was very disappointed that the beautiful bold colors we saw everywhere, were just missing from the Instax photos. Anyway, what could I do? I used them for my TN anyway, because I didn't want to prepare the spreads for photos to be added later at home.

I mainly used the super fun Summer Fun collection from Echo Park which I got from Scrapbook Werkstatt, together with various stamps from Studio Calico, SCT magazine, Lora Bailora, just to name a few.

What I've learnt so far:

• I need to take apart the TN inserts and make more, smaller books out of them. These inserts are small but because I add cardstock or patterned paper to pretty much every single page, I wasn't even half way through when the book fell apart...Too bulky.
• Possibly find inserts that have whiter and thicker pages. Then I don't need to add white cardstock or patterned paper to each page.
• I need to take more white cardstock with me. The problem I had was that my pages were very thin and if I had PP on one side, I had to add some to the other side too otherwise the patterns showed through...When I added white cardstock on one page, I didn't have to add one on the other side. Well, I mostly did because I didn't like the cream colored pages. I prefer white. So find an insert with white pages as stated before!
• Taking loads of stamps is a good idea! Since I couldn't really add very dimensional embellies to my pages to avoid bulk, I really liked adding some interest by using stamps.
• I need to take a LOT more adhesive (ATG) - or hopefully buy them locally! With all the craft stores in the US I'm hoping this will be possible.
• I've missed cut files! I will try to cut some smaller ones to take with me next time!
• About the Instax...I totally forgot about the existence of the Instax printer lol! I just saw in my Amazon basket today that I had the SP 1 saved in there from a looong time ago haha! See, I told you I was forgetful...Anyway, thanks to the lovely feedback I got on my Insta feed I decided to buy the Instax Share SP 2 printer . I haven't tried it yet, cos, you know, when some technology is involved (Bluetooth ehh?!) it always takes me time to warm myself up to the idea of trying things when I don't need them right away. And the holiday is still almost 2 months away, ha!

I loooooved working in my TN! I love the small format - if I didn't love 12x12 so much, I would consider using TN for documenting our every day life, kind of like Project Life in a different format. Because it would take up so much less space and would also require a lot less supplies (I will admit at this point that this probably wouldn't hold me back from buying way too much anyway).

Sorry for the long post, I just thought maybe some of you have the same problem I had and maybe you can use some of my experience to decide if TN is for you!

Any questions, shoot!

Laters peeps X