project monday : album on the road for thanksgiving.

It seems like every third trip I am able to hit the nail on the head and actually accomplish an album on the road. Every single vacation I plan on making something but rarely to I stick to it and make something that captures the experience. I hope our visit home to California next week for Thanksgiving is one of the good trips.

Paul and I are flying out Thanksgiving day and my family is going over to Paul's family's for the feast. Our parents live about a mile apart so holidays are pretty easy to "share". The next day we (well me, for sure) are waking early for a little sale shopping (I'm hoping a nice digital SLR will go for pennies somewhere) and then driving to San Francisco for dinner out with Paul's aunt and uncle. We're spending the night in the city and then coming back to Sacramento for football watching. It will be a whirlwind trip and hopefully the perfect opportunity to fill this little book.

I decided to go with a 6x6 album - a different size for me. I am hoping to take a lot of photos on the trip and afterwards lay them out in Photoshop on to a 12x12 blank canvas. I will then have them printed as 12x12 photos. Once they arrive, I'll cut down to 6x6 and add into the book. I also like the idea that 4x6 photos with fit within the covers in both portrait and landscape mode. I may add some of those as well.

The covers of this little book are super thick. I bought bookboard, and cut it down to about 6x6 with an x-acto knife. The cut edges looked terrible (x-acto knives are not designed to cut bookboard) but they were covered up by the paper. I used bookbinding glue to attach the flocked paper to the board and wrapped each of the sides the same way that I make custom journals. To cover up where the paper was folded in, I placed a 5.5x5.5 inch square of the same paper on the inside covers.

After everything was wrapped, I used my Crop-A-Dile to cut through the layers of paper and bookboard. This tool is my best friend and, like always, punched though everything. While on the trip, I'll use the inside card as a template for punching holes in polaroid photos and whatever else I collect.

I am obsessed with the rich texture of the paper - perfect for a festive visit. Hopefully I will fill up this travel album and not just let it go to waste... I promise to keep you posted and share the finished result this time.