Southwest Travels

Ok, who took 2010? Where in the world is this year going and can I please get off this merry-go-round for a while?

Well, I did kind of get off for a while and it was GREAT! Our nephew, James, got married a few weeks ago in Tucson, and we decided to make a vacation out of it. We basically had four requirements: Dallas (I had a new baby to cuddle), El Paso (Dave grew up there and I still had not seen it after 12 years of marriage), Tucson in time for the Rehearsal Dinner, and the Grand Canyon (Dave had never seen it and made that request). So once we survived Christmas, I started reading travel books, deciding what cities to visit, looking everything up on the internet, requesting info from Chamber of Commerces and such, making reservations, checking weather, watched Cars again and....

OMG! What a great time we had! The only downers of the trip were not enough time in some places to see the sites and visit friends. Eleven days and ten nights with perfect weather, great accommodations, delicious food and wonderful people. We did Dallas, El Paso, White Sands, Tucson, Sedona, Grand Canyon, more Sedona, Winslow (Standin' on the Corner), Holbrook (Wigwam Motel), Painted Desert, Gallup, Santa Fe, Oklahoma City, Checotah (didn't plan this one but happened to exit looking for McDonalds--home of Carrie Underwood) and HOME.

Everyone has asked me "What was the best (or favorite or prettiest) part of the trip?" My first reponse was that it was all so wonderful that there wasn't a "best". However, on second thought, the "best" was crossing the Arkansas state line coming home. It's true, there's no place like home! And Arkansas was turning green while everywhere else was not. We do have a beautiful state!

All of that to come to my little project. I knew ahead of time that we would have lots of receipts, postcards, pamphlets, etc. from the trip. And I wanted to keep them organized: 1) for when the credit card bill comes (yikes!) and 2) for when I get around to scrapping our journey. So, I designed a book of pockets.

I wanted it tall enough for those brochures you find at hotels on all of the local places and the pockets deep enough that everything would stay. I started with a piece of 12 x 12 cardstock and scored and folded it at 10 inches. I then took another piece of 12 x 12 cardstock in another color and cut it into three 12 x 4 pieces. I adhered one 12 x 4 piece to the 2 inch section of the scored sheet, making a 12 x 14 piece. I then scored and folded it in the middle at 6 inches. Thank goodness for Linda's ScorePal! With everything folded, my pages are 6 x 10 with 4 inch pockets.

I cut chipboard to 6 1/8 x 10 1/4 for the front and back and covered with cardstock and pattern paper. I borrowed Virginia's bind-it-all to put it all together and started adding things to coordinate with where we were going.











It was perfect! And believe me that it is now full.

If anyone is interested in the file, I'll get it cleaned up and posted. It was a fun project and fun to use.

Oh, I must mention that my great friend, Virginia, created the files for the Route 66 sign and the kokopelli using Make The Cut. She did an awesome job!

Jill