My First Adventure Journal

I’ve long admired the travel journals of my fellow bloggers and have always wanted to create one myself. Who wouldn’t want to record everything about a fabulous trip to London, Italy, or Paris? The only problem is that trips like that are just not happening for me right now. When my friend Cathy went on a weekend excursion to Philly and came back with a wonderful little adventure journal, I thought that was a great idea. Even if I’m not taking a major trip, I can still journal about my little adventures, right? 

Cathy made hers by following these directions from Teesha Moore. She changed the size to make it a bit smaller and filled it with ephemera, stories, quotes, and sketches. Cathy was kind enough to make a journal for each of us when several friends and I went to the Artiscape retreat in April.

I spent every spare minute of the weekend working in my journal and then spent the next two months finishing it up and adding color and ephemera. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a wannabe journaler but I have trouble sticking with it and being spontaneous and consistent about it. I do think if I practice enough I may eventually become the journaler I’d like to be.

I used sticky notes to make lists of what I did each day or things I wanted to remember and stuck those throughout the journal. Those notes were invaluable to me when it came time to finish up the pages. Having a faulty memory is a huge reason for journaling in the first place.

I filled my journal primarily with lettering and doodling about what we did or funny things that were said, and then included ephemera I picked up along the way. 

I glued in bits and pieces from retreat literature, business cards from instructors and vendors, samples of class projects, logos from stores or restaurants visited, and even my retreat ID badge. 

Afterward, I used watercolors to add a splash of color. When we started out I worried about being able to fill all the pages in the book. But in the end, there were things I had to leave out because I just didn’t have room for everything.

A few weeks after Artiscape, my husband and I went to visit our son in DC and I’m still in the process of finishing up that adventure journal. I’d eventually like to get to where I’m so good at this that I can finish them off much sooner. (Although taking a while to finish up does make the adventure last a little longer) I like the idea of being able to pull them all out some day and fondly remember all the adventures I’ve had. And when senility really sets in, I’ll know that I must have led an exciting life even if I can’t remember a thing about it!