Since I’m not travelling at the moment, I’ve been catching up on documenting previous travels – in the form of travel scrapbooks. I’ve done them sporadically over the years (my earliest is the school French exchange in 1998 and it was of course the educational part of the “holiday abroad with your friends when you’re twelve” – because “stick all your leaflets and sweet wrappers in a scrapbook” is very educational). Since late 2017, every overseas trip has had its own book and a few UK ones have too. I used the first three months of lockdown to finish seven of them and I still have two to go.
The format of the books varies. I’m a big fan of the quick-and-easy 6×6 books – just holepunch everything and/or stick it on 6×6 scrapbook paper and punch that – see my Latvia 2018 scrapbook for a great example of a quick-and-easy 6×6. I occasionally carry this idea up to A5 size but 6×6 is quickest because the paper’s already the right size.
2019 mostly went in ready-made spiral bound scrapbooks because I had them for Christmas and because my epic trip to Russia was never going to fit in anything smaller than 10×10. Mostly this isn’t my favourite method – it feels constraining.
Occasionally I’ll do a scrapbook-on-the-road – usually a smallish ready-made book that I write in and stick things in as I go along. Iceland 2016 falls into this category. It means you need to bring scrapbooking stuff with you but it can be as simple as a decent pen and a tape runner so you definitely don’t need the full craft room contents.
What I take depends on how I plan to make the book so this is a reasonably comprehensive list and I’ll only ever take a part of what’s on there.
The book
If you’re doing a scrapbook on the road, you’ll need a book. I find smaller is better and as it’s travelling with you and likely being pulled in and out of bags, it needs to be fairly tough. The one in the photo above isn’t especially tough; it’s one I made during lockdown ready for the next time I get a couple of weeks in Iceland. It’s got a mixture of plain, coloured and patterned paper and because it’s made with binder rings, I can move them around as I wish. Paperchase do a great “oversized A5” notebook with heavy card covers that can survive some very hard times.
Tape runner
This is for a scrapbook-on-the-road. No need for it if you’re putting it all together when you get home. A tape runner is convenient and properly sticky in a way that liquid glues, gluesticks and double-sided tape just aren’t (and more plane-friendly than some of them). Also, I find double-sided tape tends to dry up and crumble away in a year or two. I’m a big tape runner fan.
Glue dots
Also for scrapbooking-on-the road, for those occasions when a tape runner just can’t do the job.
Journalling pens
Regardless of scrapbook format, I usually take a handful of pens. Mine are Uni Pin Fine Line with waterproof ink and I take them in a variety of sizes. The 0.8 is good for rough paper and the 0.3/0.5 for smoother paper. I have a pin-sharp 0.05 for really fine details. They’re also good for watercolours because they’re waterproof. For Russia, I also took a red fineliner because I knew my scrapbook was going to be red and gold and I wanted some red journalling for variety. A fine Sharpie is essential for writing on shiny things like Instax photos and museum leaflets.
Index cards
If I’m doing a scrapbook-on-the-road, I’ll write straight onto the page. But if I’m coming back and putting a book together later, it’s handy to have small plain cards to journal or doodle on, or even just make notes on. I did some journalling right-there-from-a-bench on about half the days in Russia. I also used them to keep track of how many of my pre-paid 10 metro journeys I’d used and sights to see and even to write down the Russian for “Can I have ten journeys on this metro card please?”.
Watercolour paper & paints
I don’t do this often because it’s a little bit of a faff and also I’m a really bad artist. But when I was in Russia I liked to do a little sketch for my scrapbook every few days, using the aforementioned waterproof ink pens. I had a pad of A6 watercolour postcards and a Hobbycraft cheap & basic watercolour pallet and I’d bring my sketch home and paint it in the evening.
Washi tape
Another scrapbook-on-the-road product. Not for decoration but for making hinges, mostly. Occasionally to fasten something down but mostly things that I wanted to see both sides of, like tickets and leaflets. Three colours/patterns max because you don’t want to carry your entire washi collection and keeping to a small number means a certain consistency of appearance of the book at the end.
Drawing tools
I don’t often draw but I took a white pencil and a bit of black pastel/charcoal/messy smudgy thing to Iceland for sketching snowy mountains on the brown kraft pages of my journal. I’ve since added a green pencil because the mountains were a brighter green on days three & four than I expected. I took a gold paint pen to Russia for adding shiny church domes to the watercolour sketches and a metallic Sharpie in a suitable colour for your theme is always handy.
Mini hole punch
The only time I’ve bothered is on a Ranger day out that we used for the Explorer’s Handbook activity from a Skills Builder badge. I have a tiny holepunch, just like the one on my desk except it’s about an inch and a half long and only makes one hole. If I’m scrapbooking-on-the-road I’ll take a pre-made book and holepunching is only for when I get home and am making a quick-and-easy 6×6 because who wants to carry extra stuff they’re never going to use?. But for that day, the idea was to complete the book before we got home I made a tiny 4×6 book with tiny binder rings and punched an island map and sketch and postcards to insert them. Actually, I must have taken a tiny pair of scissors too because I cut round the island from the info leaflet. I rarely take scissors because they just don’t work with hand luggage.
Embellishments
I don’t really make much use of embellishments and on those rare occasions when I do, I’ll add them when I get home. But when I did my Iceland 2016 scrapbook-on-the-road, I took some labels and banners which were partly for… well, labelling things, and partly for decoration.