Road Trip!

We often take a road trip across the state to see family... generally during the holiday season.

Our Christmas trip was particularly interesting (including riding snowmobiles with our luggage and christmas gifts in order to reach our destination and packing our items in the extended cab truck versus the spacious--yet less winter road ready-- minivan).

Some of the elements of the trips have been "tradition". We've got it down. We know what we want in the vehicle with us as we travel, and we know what we'll see outside as we traverse the 400 miles.

I decided to "scrap" it. It's not really exciting or eventful, but it is memory making. I hope my kids will look back at this page and remember our family travels across the state of Washington with a smile on their faces.

For those interested, it's a hybrid page. I used a Photoshop Elements template that was FREE and included a video tutorial by Jessica Sprague in the January issue of Creating Keepsakes. I LOVE Jessica Sprague's computer tricks features each month!

Some of the page elements are from the Basic Grey "OffBeat" paper line (got it at CKC--Seattle... finally I'm using it!) I also created some elements using Photoshop Elements to match the paper, including text based elements (thanks to Becky for helping create the text on a path!).

And yes, that's bubble wrap you see on the layout. Here's a closeup of it: During my post holiday cleanup, I ran across a bunch of this stuff... and was inspired! After I pried it out of my childrens' hands, I kept it in my "green" scrapping stash-- I try to use random recycled objects in my projects when I can.

I used a variation of the same free template to create a two page 12x12 layout that I posted on the Paper Pals Design Team blog-- here's the journaled story behind the layout you'll see there:

So think of something you do traditionally (like a road trip)-- that isn't centered on a holiday. Scrap it. It will always be fun to look back on something that gives you happy memories.