Journaling Your Staycation (in Technicolor)

Hello, Campers!  Hopefully you've been enjoying the first two weeks of Summer Camp here on the JBS Inspiration blog.  This week's focus is on vacation journaling.  A vacation can mean many things to many people, but above all, a vacation is an escape, a reprieve from our usual routines and preoccupations.  One can vacation with a view of the Eiffel Tower, at the edge of a lake, in a cramped RV, or on a comfy couch.  Yes, even a staycation counts as a vacation.   

One of the pleasures of vacationing at home is that you can still travel -- via the pages of a book, that is, transcending time and place without the need of a passport or a wormhole.  Any chance my family had of traveling this year went out the window when puppy love interfered: we spent our would-be travel funds on our dog's knee surgery.  I have no regrets, though.  I'd like to think that we went on vacation anyway -- a book-cation, if you will.  

This layout documents my family's page-turning reading journeys (feel free to click on the pics if you'd like a closer view of the journaling).

The journaling above offers a kind of synopsis of our book-cation, but the rest of the journaling on the layout took a wee bit of planning.  I compiled a few basic questions, and my husband, daughter, and I had a fun conversation about the highlights of our summer reading lists.  I jotted down some notes as we talked about favorite books (or series), characters that endeared themselves to us, memorable scenes, favorite places to read, and whether we preferred e-books or paper. This way I could incorporate each person's voice on the layout, sneakily getting my husband and daughter to  contribute to the journaling for this page.  Although my husband, ever the joker, gave me a hard time with playful "decoy" answers at first, I think I was able to tease out a few sincere answers from him.

At times I find that figuring out what to journal can be as challenging as figuring out where and how to journal.  I knew I wanted to use the Die-Cut Circle Label Mini Papers and the Mini Classic Die-Cut Label Papers, but I decided to add a summery colorpop feel to them with the help of my trusty JBS for Ranger Re-Inkers.

I filled four mini-misters 1/4 of the way with Lemon Drops, Soap Powder, Seed Packet, and a combination of Chewing Gum and Chili Powder, and then filled them nearly to the brim with water.  I misted over the papers, mixing blue with green and red with yellow, and printed my journaling over each one.

In keeping with the whole bibliophile vibe, I tried to make the layout itself a tribute to the printed page, mixing in text papers from the JBS Haven line, adding elements from a Hodge Podge book, and creating a torn page border on the left side of the layout.

After lightly sanding the Core'dinations Country Store cardstock to reveal the numbers (which I love alongside the tower o' books that we compiled from our summer reading lists), I stamped the edge of the cardstock with a Torn Paper Border acrylic stamp, using Chili Powder dye ink. I then cut around the non-inked edges to create the "torn" effect.

Ultimately, Campers, the point is this:  regardless of where and how you are spending your vacation this summer, you most definitely have a story to share.  So share it!  

Your Camp Counselor,