A Travel Journal

Soon, the Farmboy and I will be celebrating 10 years of marriage.

{wow. 10 years... that seems like the blink of an eye... yet, we are so well matched,

my Farmboy and I,

that our marriage feels like my right arm...

something I was born with and has been with me my whole life.}

Many years ago, we decided we would celebrate our first 10 years in Scotland.

So that is what we are doing.

Which of course, will call for a travel journal.

And so I made one.

I found this antique photo album in Austin last August, brought it home and put it in my slowly growing photo album pile.

{dear photo album pile, I love you.  yours always, alisa}

After we purchased our plane tickets I went to my beautiful pile to find an album for the journal.

Lo and behold, I had just the perfect album and began immediately ripping that beauty apart.

Unfortunately, the photo block was glued to the fabric {once a deep, royal purple velvet, that was no longer velvet- just a rough fabric} with a glue so strong that not even father time was able to break it down and there was no way to save it.

So I used a pretty, thistle purple velvet ribbon for my binding tapes.

However, after sewing in my signatures, I lost the beauty of the velvet ribbon.

No problem, I thought.  I had just enough ribbon left to cover the binding thread.

But then I did have a problem.

After tucking one end of the ribbon under a couple of the long binding stitches and gluing the ribbon end to the back of the ribbon, I found I couldn't do the same on the opposite side.

No way to get the glue in there after tucking the end through the stitches.

So I had to find another way to hold the ribbon in place.

To say I was giddy with excitement may be an understatement, when I thought to use embroidery as my solution.

I have to tell you, it was not necessarily an easy solution though.

I used a feather stitch to hold the end in place and proceeded to embroider thistles on each velvet tape.
{because I'm themey like that}

I used a raised chain stitch for my stem.  A stitched I had not used before.  Which is obvious by looking at my first {top} tape and comparing it to the last {bottom} tape that I stitched.
That's okay.  I'm trying to embrace imperfection.
Not to mention it shows me the improvement I accomplished within a short time.

On the inside I used a collection of different scrapbook papers, bristol board, antique ledger, kraft cards/envelopes and washi tape.

If I can find the time I'm thinking about adding gesso and paint to some of the pages before we leave.

 

 

I am so happy with this journal and can't wait to fill it with memories.

 

After showing it to the Farmboy and he telling me how pretty it was, he asked,

"Wait, are you going to lug that thing all the way to and around Scotland?"

After giving him my perfected "stern/are you crazy" look I replied,

"Hell YES, I am!"

 

He may be like a right arm, but really....