Travel Scrapbooks - Advice on adding memorabilia

Greetings all -

I'm completely new to scrapbooking, and I'm working on a book right now of pictures and memorabilia from a trip to Europe. Most of my scrapbooking will be about travel and trips, as I have compulsively saved tons of memorabilia from nearly all my trips (brochures, postcards, patches, stickers, maps, tickets, receipts, etc).

I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to approach paper memorabilia such as brochures and maps. Some brochures are double-sided or fold-out, and I'd like them to still be readable to someone looking at the scrapbook.

I'm working on a layout for pictures from a historic tower, for example. I have pictures chosen and cropped, and colors picked. The brochure for the tower is fantastic. It's beautifully colored, fold-out, with history and information everywhere. The simplest solution I've come up with to add it to the layout is to put it into a pocket. I even made an accordion pocket for it.

Do you have advice and examples of other ways to display these types of memorabilia? I don't want to always use a pocket.

-ggep

Welcome

Sometimes I scan things or take a photo and then print it out (often making it bigger or smaller than the original) so I can display both sides at once. I also print from websites a lot for brochure type information and stock photos. Pockets are a great idea to contain things like this, but I use page protectors and all my layouts are basically to be seen and not touched ... so they don't work for me. (There are certainly ways you can use page protectors and still keep pages interactive, it's just not something I like to do.)

Hi ggep - I'm a travel scrapper too and I scrap tons of travel layouts. I like my pages behind protectors and not touched also so pockets are not a solution for me.

I use a lot of tickets, brochures and memorbilia also. I did an entire book of Itay 2 or 3 years ago (90 pages I think) and in 2010 I did a complete book (90 pages) of Germany and I used menus and everything else you can think of.

Right now I'm in Hawaii and the 12 x 12 plastic carrier with the handle is getting full of memorbilia and scrapbook stuff I've purchased on this trip - we've been gone for 6 weeks and were on an Alaska cruise a few weeks back.

Almost all my pages have memorbilia and photos.

Like Kara, I sometimes photocopy it in color if the size is way off - like with menus which are larger than the paper or tickets on really flimsy paper I know won't hold up.

Here's some examples of travel pages with memoribilia but you can check my gallery and there and hundreds of travel pages. The albums are by country or cruise.

I love to use maps on a title page:

Australia Title Page By Henri Jean

Another with a lot of journaling. As you can tell, I love journaling on my scrapbook pages. Even the paper for the journaling was from the cruise ship.

Singapore - Marina Bay Sands 1 By Henri Jean

China - arriving in Beijing - Right By Henri Jean

Incheon, South Korea By Henri Jean

Cruise Day 15 By Henri Jean

Cruise Days 9, 10, 11 & 12 By Henri Jean

Russia By Henri Jean

This one is just a menu I wanted included!

Portland - Fun with Bruce and Jessica By Henri Jean

One with no photo.

A night in Dallas By Henri Jean

Hawaii - At the Big Island Airport By Henri Jean

The background on this one is all Hershey's Kisses foil wrappers from Hawaii - they have a macadamia nut version of Hershey's kisses there. I also used the bag on this on this page.

Hawaii - Big Island - Mauna Loa - Right Side By Henri Jean

Okay - I hope that gives you some ideas.

AK Teddy Bear is another gallery to check out - she uses a lot of brochures and things she picks up when she travels and her layouts are stunning.

For me it is important to keep travel pages pretty simple so I don't go really fancy. I have to be very careful not to overpower my photos.

Everybody pretty much said everything that I would suggest. You can scan the items and then resize them or you can include pockets on your pages to stick the memoribillia in. I think it all depends on the page that you are working on and what works best for you.

Thanks for all the advice so far, everyone. I'm also using page protectors, so I'm avoiding "functional" elements.

Henri Jean - your layouts are so attractive and inventive! They've given me a bunch of ideas to play with. Thanks!

Don't let page protectors stop you from using pockets - consider cutting slits in the page protectors at the top of the pocket, or attach pockets (or clear flipping elements) to the outsides of page protectors.

Glad I could help ggep. I love doing travel layouts but like you, I accumulate so much paper stuff. I just treat them like photos. I do a lot of collage type pages if I have a lot of memorabilia. Works for me.

And I do photocopy and resize on occasion - if something is really oversized or if the paper obviously isn't going to hold up. Some paper and ink just fades quickly so I always copy things on that type of paper.

• aquabunny Said:

What she said!

Also-when cutting slits, I've found it helps avoid tearing if you punch a tiny hole at each end of the slit.