Citrus Twist Kits | Documenting a trip

Hi everyone!

How do you document a trip you really really liked and have 500 great photos from that trip? Do you just forget about it and do nothing? Because that wouldn't be the way to go...

As you know it, not long ago, I came back from a trip to Dubai and I really loved it and didn't want to miss the chance to document it so here's how I went about to document it:

1. I wrote a blogpost. I didn't want to forget anything and I thought that was the best way to go. Journal. And add some pictures maybe too. It took me some time. Maybe a half day, but I'm glad I did it because when I had the chance to scrapbook my trip, weeks later, I had already forgotten so much information and I was happy to just look back at my blog post. I was also happy that my best pictures were already selected.

2. I did a layout about the BEST part of the trip! For me it was my day in the sand dunes. I'll tell you more about this layout very soon on the Citrus Twist Kits blog as part of a tutorial showing you how to build a double page layout with lots of photos and journaling.

3. I did a layout that serves as a summary of the trip. I didn't want to tell everything on that page, nor display all my best pictures, but I wanted to give a feel of the trip and show several activities we made.

It's this layout:

The title is "welcome to Dubai" and I chose lots of pictures of my husband an I, including the forbidden kiss at the top of Burj Khalifa. A photo at the beach, one of our hotel room number in arab and roman numbers. :) The Burj Khalifa and Dubai mall, the view at the marina (where we were staying), our favorite tea place with fresh dates and palm tree reflection in the glass of the table. The whole trip is not there. The sand dunes are not there for example, but the main of the trip is there.

I didn't use a lot of products either. Look.  A white background and just some embellishments here and there. Sometimes, you just have to stop overthinking everything and to over complicate everything. Simple is good. And what you want are your pictures and the story, right?!

Sorry for the inappropriate photo.... my daughter wasn't happy with this. But it was kind of a big part of the trip because we (or I) were a little bit nervous about that whole thing of not being allowed to hold hands in public.

The journaling sums the trip up. Not all details are there, but I knew that more pages were coming. :)

4. I then did a layout about the 2nd most interesting thing during my trip: the top of Burj Khalifa.

As you can see, it doesn't take much to make a scrapbook layout! Only a story to document.

I really wanted to incorporate these 2 tickets on my page so that's the first thing I did: find them a place. I then played my photos as it made sense, playing around to see how I could fit them in the space I had left. I decided I'd isolate the small picture of the tower to give it some more "power".

I mounted in onto a piece of colored paper and I added some details net to it. Adding enamel dots to act as bullet points. I used te stamp to add the subtitle "highlights".

I played a little bit with the papers I had in the kit to customize this tag. I really love that the kit comes with a bit of twine. I love adding it to my layouts. :)

I journaled in the space I had left. Story documented!

And theres a 3rd page made to document my trip. How awesome is that?
But I wasn't done yet!! I really wanted to incorporate more pictures that I had already printed in various sizes, and I wanted to document the mall + the day at the beach/souk/some more favorite moments.

5. So I made another simple page:

I used a colored background, just because I was getting to be tired of the pure white. Ha! :) And that turquoise fitted nicely with the feel of my mall photos.

Once again I used an ephemera, the mall guide! I had never seen a mall guide this thick. And a mall as beautifully done as this one!! So I really wanted to incorporate the guide in my book.

Because I wanted it to be easy to take out of the pocket to look at it, I've put it at the top of the page. It's a very thick and heavy book though, I'm not sure if it will hold in my album. Worse case scenario, I'll with the paperclip for a mini gold bulldog clip. But at least, this way, we only have to pull the page up an inch to have access to the brochure.

I used 2 3x4 cards from the Pocket Life kit to add my journaling and I basically just played around with the photos to see how they could fit.

6. I made one last layout with the rest of my photos:

Again, this layout was all about find a spot for all the pictures. How to position my photos so that it makes sense and so that it all fits!

I gathered together the beach photos, the evening at the marina + tea photos, and finally I used the last spot for the Burj al Arab and souk (no photos) we visited. The details are all in the journaling.

For my night photos I was happy to use a darker background paper.

Notice that I added the little bag of tea that I brought for that purpose. I really loved the shine of the gold on it. :) You know you're a scrapbooker when you bring back what others consider trash. lol

Ha, also, I numbered these 2 last pages to show the days and the order we did these things. On my blog, when I told the story of Dubai, I separated the things in 2 ways: first, by day, second, by event/places. I kind of liked it. On my pages, it's not that clear. But I hope that the 1 and 2 will help me make sense of it all when I look back on those pages in some years. I'm still not sure the order I'll put the pages in in my album, and also, maybe I'll add a number 3 on my sand dunes pages.

So that's it for my Dubai trip. It was quite a experience to document all this and it was fun to relive the trip. :) I ended up with 5 pages (one of them being double) and lots of stories and details. Not everything is there, and not every photo I love is there either, but the essence is there. I'm happy. :)

I hope this helps you make sense of it all and I hope you'll revisit this post when you'll be ready to document a bigger trip. I especially hope that you WILL document your next big trip, and that the photos AND stories will find a home in an album!!

Marie-Pierre