Summertime, Summertime, Sum, Sum, Summertime!

It's almost summertime!! Actually, it always feels like summer here! It's been in the 80's and 90's the whole month of March!! But for me summertime is when school is out. I enjoy the time I get to spend with my son and during the summer we go on Adventures. It started a few years back when my son had a hard time writing. His penmanship was awful and I was worried that over summer vacation he would have lost everything he worked so hard to gain. I thought that if he would work on his writing a little every week that by the time school started he would at least be where he left off. Knowing how much he disliked writing I thought I would make it fun for him. We made a journal and I searched for local attractions that were low cost or free. Then once a week we would take a day trip to one of the places...the beach, museum, pier, nature trails. Then he had a week to write about the Adventure. We originally called them Adventure Wednesdays because that was the day that we went on them. But we couldn't always go every Wednesday for one reason or another so we decided to just call them Adventures. Every year we either made a journal or purchased one. 

Last year was a beautiful journal we purchased from another ETSY shop Inblue. She used the Trilobite from the Blast from the Past set I sent her. Timmy loved it! The pages were blank, but I made a stamp so Timmy would have lines to write on. I have been debating whether or not to release that stamp. I will probably be releasing that one soon, it's been awhile since I released any new ones (there is a problem getting the negatives I need! UGH)! He did great with the journal and I'm so happy to say that this year he received all A's on his report card for writing!!! 

Here is this years journal.... I used different stamps from the Adventure series sets. I have the map stamp, but need to make some adjustments to that set...when the negatives arrive.

I used a composition book for this journal. Using the Adventure stamp sets along with the words in those sets, I stamped up a piece of pattern paper from DCWV's Old World Stack with browns and cocoa ink. I stamped the fedora on brown cardstock and glued it to a piece of thin chipboard and stuck it down on the map that I stamped and crumbled, distressed, tore and inked around the edges. I also used a maroon ink pen to put an "x" to make it more of a treasure map. The binding area I used a brown cardstock and where the pattern paper and cardstock meet I used a ribbon with a jaguar print. I used Thickers for his name and rubons for the word Adventures. I added two ribbons for Timmy to use as markers and secured them with brads on the edge.  Lastly, I stamped the year on the edge of the binder with one of the last sets introduced "By The Numbers". I made those for the December Daily that I worked on this year, but I'll get to that in another post!

So for now, I'm eagerly awaiting the Adventures to start!!

Happy writing!