If you have been following me for a the last few months, you know that I’ve been stash diving lately! In an effort to use up some very old patterned paper and release myself from the guilt of having that pile on a shelf that I’ve never used in years, I started a traveler’s notebook.
I really wasn’t sure what other people did with a traveler’s notebook, but I forged ahead and covered all the pages in the little journal I had in my stash with two packages of patterned paper that I had had for 6 or 7 years. My plan was to use it as a gratitude journal.
It has since turned into so much more!
Mostly by accident I might add!
I participated in a 3 day virtual crop this past weekend and we made 11 layouts in those 3 days. I’m also participating in a LOAD Challenge with my Scrap Happy Family forum crafty friends. That is a layout a day for each day of October and I get the story and technique prompts every morning.
This has been a lot of layouts to create in a 3 day period!! I actually used my traveler’s notebook for some of the challenges, mostly because I didn’t have photos that worked and I couldn’t see making a 12 x 12″ layout of my favorite Halloween song.
The traveler’s notebook was the perfect outlet for those challenges and thus, opened a new world of memory keeping for me: LISTS!
Today’s LOAD challenge was about favorite family feasts or food traditions. I happened to have a photo of an especially pretty turkey I made in 2017 using one of those paper bags from Reynolds. It makes for a pretty turkey!
I used that photo and then added my list of a traditional Thanksgiving meal and items that everyone likes to have on the list for the day.
Another favorite was the list of our favorite Halloween movies. I printed a picture of the DVD cover and made the list of all the movies we often feel inspired to watch over Hallween! We used to have family movie night on either Friday or Saturday nights while the kids were growing up. We had pizza and popcorn and watched a movie. It was a lot of fun! Whatever night we didn’t do that we had family game night.
So these little traveler’s notebooks are allowing me to record what I would consider to be less traditional memories or stories that have made me who I am and I am quite liking this little project!! It’s getting full already and I still have the rest of October and November to finish filling it with my new lists of favorite things!
I hope this inspires you to give the traveler’s notebooks a try. People use them in all kinds of ways. This is actually a pretty fun thing to do with them and it doesn’t take a lot of time. It’s a fun 30 minute a day project that allows you to record a part of your story and think about something fun for a bit while you create something you will enjoy looking at years from now!
Thank you for stopping by!! Have a wonderful day my friend!
