Easy Travel Layout with Authentique's Quest
It's travel collection season in the scrapbook industry, and that means lots of new goodies to play with for making my travel scrapbooks! One of my favorite new releases this year is Authentique Paper's Quest collection.
[Disclaimer: Authentique Paper and Cricut provided some products used in this article but this is not a sponsored post. This site is a participant in the Amazon affiliate program. Some links in this article are affiliate links that pay this site a commission at no cost to you if you make a purchase after a click.]
Quest is done in Authentique's signature vintage style. The palette is red, cream, and blue, with touches of brown. It features lots of my favorite travel pattern elements: airmail stripes, maps, tickets, and vintage postcards.
I'm one of those crazy people that likes to take photos on airplanes as part of documenting my trip. Whether it is out the window, or an in-seat selfie, I usually am snapping away! I like to start my trip albums with these "getting there" photos. (There usually aren't as many airplane photos on the way home when I'm collapsed in my seat exhausted.)
Supplies Used:
Authentique "Quest" collection (Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Blueprint Sketch (Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Hickory Smoke (Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
Kelly Purkey "Take Flight" stamp set
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen (Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
Hero Arts Jayne's Blush ink cubes - Pale Tomato (Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
cream cardstock
Tonic Studios Tim Holtz Stamp Platform (Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Marker in Hickory Smoke (Scrapbook.com, Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
navy cardstock
white cardstock
Simple Stories "Travel Notes" stickers (Simon Says Stamp, Amazon)
twine
The first step in designing my layout was choosing my background paper. I liked how my photos looked against this neutral blue compass pattern. Its blue-gray tones complemented some of the grayer tones in the background of my photos, and allowed the color in the top two photos to "pop". The bottom photo is more neutral, but because it has strong visual lines it stands out against the round designs in the pattern paper.
I selected this arrangement for the photos by starting with the selfie. It needed to be on the right because of the direction I am leaning. The other two just followed from there, based on the white space in them and their shape.
The photo arrangement left a lot of white space at the bottom, a perfect area for a title. I created a patterned paper block. Its dimensions were carefully created to align with the right edge of the top photo and fall halfway between the left edges of the overlapping photos. This gives balance and flow to that arrangement of items on the left side.
Next I added border strips cut from another sheet of the Quest patterned paper to the top and bottom of the layout. This added some color, filled white space at the top, and grounded the items they touch to the page.
Like on most of my layouts, the paper elements were edged in ink before being adhered down to the background. (Blueprint Sketch for the title block and Hickory Smoke for the borders.)
I was still left with some odd white space on the bottom left, though, and I wanted to fill it. So I got out my Cricut Maker, and some Cricut Kraft Board! The Cricut Maker cuts Cricut Kraft Board without the need for special blades, but I recommend using the purple firm hold mat with the material.
The patterned paper I chose for the title block had antique planes on it. I decided to emphasize that with a die cut of a antique plane. The Kraft Board provides some dimension to the plane.
I placed my airplane in the white space on the left, careful to overlap it with the title block just a bit to connect the design elements. It was important to remember to make sure it was flying towards my title so that it didn't lead the eye out of the layout. That arrangement also conveniently arranged the angle of the wings so that they avoided the corner of the photo!
I had a stamp set from an old (retired) KellyPurkey.com kit that I was dying to use, so I decided to use the tag from it for my journaling. Another pop of red seemed like a good idea, but red is really hard to match. I finally found an ink in my stash that was the same shade but much too bright.
So the solutions was my Tim Holtz Stamp Platform! First, I stamped the tag stamp in the red ink I had. As you can see from the image below on the left, it was too bright. I wiped off my stamp and reinked it with Distress Antique Linen for a second impression. As you can see from the image on the right, the layered colors created a color that is much closer to the red in my border strip. Another great use for my stamp platform!
With the tag in place, I had an area remaining for my title. I decided to use the airport code for Frankfurt: FRA. With my Cricut Maker and some navy cardstock, I was able to make letters that fit perfectly in the space that I had. The slope of the "A" even angles perfectly under my journaling tag!
For a final touch, I added a few journaling stickers at the top of the layout. I used my computer to type the white ones that show which leg of the journey that the photos were on.
Oh, there's one more detail I almost missed! Before I attached my journaling tag, I tied some natural twine through the hole I punched in it. I could have used baker's twine that coordinated with the blue or red, but using the natural color helped the brown plane look more coordinated.
This simple layout is a great way to start out my album for my second trip to Frankfurt! I can't wait to make more pages, some of which will certainly be with this Authentique Quest collection.
Want to see another travel layout made with a different Authentique Paper collection? Check out my spring travel layout made with the new Dreamy collection from Authentique!