Themed Albums Part 1: Travel Albums

Need some direction on making a perfect Travel album?

Welcome to the first installment of my blog series on themed albums! Themed albums focus on one topic and examples may include an annual holiday album, books that only feature a child's birthday parties throughout their life, and of course travel albums, our focus here today. I hate to pick favorites because I love ALL of my scrapbooks, but there really is something special about travel albums. Vacations, whether short or long or near or far, give us a chance to let go of the day to day challenges and obligations of life, so it's not surprising that these are the moments we most want to relive, over and over again. 

Themed scrapbook projects are nice because you have a finite topic and thus you are not likely to be overwhelmed by the task at hand. Sounds like a great first project for someone with years of photos and no idea where or how to start! Since most people who take pictures have at least one set  of memorable vacation photos, I am hopeful the travel project is a topic that will have universal appeal for all my readers. So gather up your travel photos and get ready to make a fantastic scrapbook!


There are two ways you can approach these types of photo albums. One is an ongoing project that you add to each year with a few pages devoted to multiple trips, and the other is a full book about one spectacular trip. Both are equally fun! I'll demonstrate the difference between the two, starting with the album where you add a little bit after each trip you take. 

1.) Travel Books

 Let's start with the idea of a true "Travel" book, one in which you highlight various trips with several pages devoted to each one. I have one with the following inscription inside the front cover: 

The inscription in the front of my travel album

About a year ago when I wanted to try my first Fast2Fabulous album to document a group of short family weekend trips, I chose Strut Your Stuff. 

Strut Your Stuff Fast2Fabulous Album

I loved the cool blue and green color theme, but with a stack of pictures as varied as a trip to Pittsburgh to see Muse, a trip to Disney World with the kids to have fun at the Halloween party, a beach trip in the spring, my husband's travels to photograph trains, and a vacation to Atlanta, GA to visit the Coke Museum and the Georgia Aquarium, I was unsure if they would all come together on these pre-loaded, predesigned pages.

The work's already done - you essentially get free stickers, free papers, free mats and professional layouts with Fast2Fabulous albums. All you need is your pen, your pictures and a tape runner. I even worked on this one in the car.

As it turned out, these completely unrelated adventures all looked equally beautiful from one page to the next and best of all, this fabulous scrapbook was finished in no time, with only a pen and a tape runner to adhere my pictures to the pages!  

What does Muse have to do with Strut Your Stuff? Nothing, but somehow it works (and I found a perfect place for our tickets)

Disney World? At Halloween? And no orange and black paper or Mickey stickers to be found? You bet! Thank you Fast2Fabulous for doing the work for me.

Look at my husband's gorgeous handwriting and his nice work selecting a few pictures to place in the designated boxes

Georgia Aquarium and the Coke museum and not a single fish or cola sticker needed!

Many vacations documented all in one place, no need for any extra embellishments, our stories told, page protectors slid over, what a great feeling of accomplishment. My family LOVES looking at this book because it brings us to so many fun locations in one sitting! Thank you Creative Memories and Fast2Fabulous albums!

2.) Vacation Books 

The second type of album you could choose is one in which you focus on just one specatacular trip - I will just call this one a vacation book because it is specific to one vacation. I have to admit, I often come home from longer excursions with anywhere from 700-1,500 photos to choose from, so these are pretty common albums for me. I will select my best 500 or so because our albums can hold about that many photos, more if you crop your pictures (which we are not going to do here.) There is something nice about Spargo or  Natural pages with travel pictures, so I am going to feature those in this next section. I will also show off my Tangerine, Plum and Then Some Fast2Fabulous travel book!

The great thing about Creative Memories's traditional albums is that whether you pick white, natural, or spargo refill pages, you will have a large, blank canvas to work on. In addition to all the space for photos and journals, you can also add memorabilia to your pages because the buffered pages are built to repel acid from these. 

Brochures are welcome since Creative Memories' pages are buffered to repel acid

Here my mother has used Natural pages and  cut out pictures and titles from brochures to create a simple title for one of the pages within her Italy album. She also likes to buy postcards to add to her pages - I think that's a great idea. A third trick is to take pictures of the signs of the places where you visit. Are you picking up on a theme here? Yes, she is thinking about the album project while she is still on the trip. Some folks (myself included) even go so far as bringing a journal on the trip to take notes. Others even carry their laptop so they can upload their photos while on the trip before they even get home (guilty again- yes I like to "pre-scrapbook!")

While  my mother doesn't generally take it as far as I do to "pre-scrapbook" she does do a great job of journaling her pages from memory. She either writes right on the pages themselves or in journaling boxes, and on some pages she adds a few simple embellishments like stars or stickers. There is no rule that pages have to be elaborate or time consuming to be beautiful - the most important thing about albums is getting them done and making sure the supplies you use are photo safe and guaranteed to stand the test of time. That's why we only use Creative Memories' albums, pens and adhesives for our projects.

Journaling boxes and postcards - nice, simple page enhancements

A few punched out stars add a nice touch to this page

I will finish off with one of my favorite album stories for people who say they haven't tried Fast2Fabulous albums yet. When my friends and I turned... well, let's just say a round number... we decided to take a trip to the Dominican Republic to celebrate. We had lots of fun and I took 700 beautiful pictures. I uploaded them and ordered them on the Monday night I arrived home, and Shutterfly had the photos on my doorstep by Friday night. On Saturday night I pulled my Tangerine, Plum and Then Some album off the shelf, placed my favorite pictures from the trip in order on the pages (with an extra pack of refills and some slide in pages as well) and after a few more hours early Sunday morning my album was complete! I had never seen anything like it!  Nearly 700 photos, in an album, beautifully documented, less than a week after returning home from a trip and I spent less than 4 hours on the entire thing. Now if that isn't magic I don't know what is - see what you think of my pages!

The Tangerine, Plum and Then Some Fast2Fabulous album 

A gorgeous start to a gorgeous album - I love the color theme in Tangerine, Plum and Then some (it matches our Vintage paper pack)

We're on our way (and the pages sure look like I worked hard but I didn't!)

The food buffet pictures were a perfect place to use our Slide In pages - very simple and no adhesives required.

I love incorporating cards from our Slide In Packs to add a splash of color

Slide in pages are great for trip memorabilia

Completed travel books, ready to put on the shelf

So that's a brief introduction to Travel themed albums - I hope you've been inspired to work on your own project! The sooner you do them after your trip the better because the details will be clearer, so there's no time like the present to start yours. Creative Memories has a gorgeous array of coversets and your choice of white, natural or spargo refill pages, or you could take the route of the Fast2Fabulous album like the ones I featured here! I highlighted two of my favorites (Strut Your Stuff and Tangerine, Plum and Then Some) but they aren't the only ones available - Now Boarding, Changes in Latitude and Sunshine Getaways are some other favorites for vacation books! Check them out at my personal Creative Memories website or that of your own CM Advisor.

Now Boarding CM Fast2Fabulous album

Changes in Latitude CM Fast2Fabulous album

Sunshine Getaway CM Fast2Fabulous album