38 pages of Costa Rica--done in three weeks!

The cover





Title page (above)

The Costa Rica Album!
Time to upload some new pages!
I talk about speed scrapping a lot. I heartily advocate just getting the job underway --and not second guessing your own personal style and good taste. It can be done. Plan efficiently. Make page kits. Set aside time to crop. Use your stash!

I just finished a speed album of 38 vacation pages that I did for my daughter about her Costa Rica trip. My daughter can add her own personal journaling later if she likes. We have plenty of room for that. I am posting the layouts here so you can see how I used what I had. It did not match. Some papers were what I would call downright old and frankly too neon for me. I also used up ribbons, flowers, and more that were bold and bright. However, for this kind of tropical travel album project-- they really did work! I tried to match color schemes to each other (within each two page layout) but not necessarily to the next layout sets. You can get a feel for this kind of scrapping here.



A ticket to ride??? Mexicana Airlines goes bankrupt after 89 years in business on the DAY they are booked to fly out. Thank goodness American Airlines later picked up the flights a few hours later!



Jaco Beach accomidations- nice digs!



The 4 girls



Stylin' in Central Ameirca!



The coastline



Sailing on the ocean



Just another day at the beach...



Beach Girls



The Monkeys in the Jungle



Hiking in the jungle



Jungle Trek- more animals like giant sloths, small dragons, iguana lizards, mackaws and parrots, large hermit crabs, and beautiful flowers.



Surfer Girl -taking lessons



Beautiful Moments like This



Seashore Retreat



Poas Friends- at the Volcano



Escape- the food is delish!



Always Travel and Enjoy Life. (and don't mind the rain!)



Delicious! ...more great food and drinks!



Homeward Bound (on American Airlines!)

This ENTIRE album and pages cost me a total of about $9.50. HOW?? This seems impossible right? The album itself was $1 at a garage sale. I bought it 3 years ago and set it aside. I had NO IDEA then how I was going to use it at the time. I thought it was going to have to be altered and muted because that cover is so boldly striped. (Igg! I prefer earth or jewel tones!) But again, for the tropics, it works really well! All the titles are from my sticker stash, the Cricut machine, or accent sticker titles from various travel sticker sets left over from the Germany 2010 album done a month before. I did have two friends gift me between 5 and ten travel papers each. One friend lent me 7 big flowers (on the cover and the last homeward bound page). All the rest of these supplies were from my own stash.

I feel the clencher for keeping my costs down over this 38 page album is truly the stash-paper.
I am so proud of using up about 55 pieces of odds and ends 12x12 paper stash that I would not likely use anywhere else. Neon yellows, crazy and bold florals, mouth-puckering limes, eye scorching oranges, and whooo-nasty stripes-- theyALL went into these 38 pages. I cut them and tore them and mixed them and matched them. So....if you subtract those 10 or so papers that my two dear friends shared with me (because they wanted to lighten their own stashes) then I used about 45 of my own papers. Streamlining my stash --and getting pages done in an appropriately colorful way feels fabulous! Saving an average of $1 a sheet or more means I saved $45 to $60 on this project!. That doesn't hurt either!

The album and the paper and accent supplies before photo developing for an album this size and scope can run easily $100 to $150. I did it for a tenth of that price because I really looked at what I had and made it work for me. I used the "Going Places" Cricut cartridge and some of my other font cartridges. Make your big tools work for you. Use them! My pals tossed a few surplus papers my way when they saw I was doing the tropics. I bet you share like that too. Next time around they know that I will share with them. I figured out what worked and what wouldn't for each page. Don't scrutinize and over-analyse and cut your ideas off at the knees! Trust your own combinations and creations!

Costa Rica (Jaco Beach) was the lovely site for this set of vacation photos. I apologize for the poor photos. I took them in the evening under florescent light with a cell phone camera. But you get the idea! Now the photos all have a fitting home and I feel so productive! LOL My daughter will love it. I know you have albums that you can get done from your own stashes too. Whether for gifts or for yourselves, just make them!

It doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful. Your supplies don't have to right off the truck from CHA! The photos are the focus!
Enjoy!
DO IT!