Vacation Crafts: A More Personalized Souvenir

A painted 10x10 canvas decorated with
photos and leaves from a camping trip.

I'm not sure about you, but one of my favorite parts of any trip is the souvenirs! As much as I enjoy my key chains and fridge magnets, I found a way to make my souvenirs even more personal and fun by crafting them up myself. I have always enjoyed crafting and making personalized gifts, so it is no surprise that you will find crafty seashell or rock projects in my home from places I have traveled. I have posted photos of some of my own personal projects to show some ideas for those random pretty leaves you see or rocks and shells you collect. Crafting souvenirs makes for a great way to remember your special trips!

A small decorated mason jar filled with
seashells.

 There are plenty of ways to get creative with these types of crafts, from doing them with children to making something special to give as a gift. I found a couple of videos for craft ideas that I would love to do in the future; this seashell caterpillar and this seashell owl were a couple of my favorites to keep in mind for my next collection of shells.

A small decorative glass bowl filled with
scent beads, seashells and a painted rock.

Scrap booking is another way I love to make memories last a lifetime. However, after a long trip I barely seem to have time to get myself organized, more or less photos and memorabilia organized into a book. I recently began taking up offers from sites such as Snapfish and Shutterfly for free photo books. This was an easy and inexpensive way to organize my photos into a fun book. My son loves looking through his own personalized picture book from a trip. They are also a great way to show off your trip without a pile of photos or scrolling through the tons of pictures on your phone.

While buying a key chain or magnet is simple, crafting your own souvenirs makes for a much more personalized memory of your trip. All of my travels are special to me in their own way, so I enjoy putting things together to help keep those special memories alive. So, next trip you are on, collect those random items and get creative with them!

How Google Maps Made My Family Trip Easier

Traveling is always an adventure, but there are many things that could make it a bit easier. For example, wouldn't it be nice to know every hotels rating around where you plan to stay without having to do extensive online research? Or how about finding gas prices at the next town you plan to stop and fill up in, long before you get there? These are just a couple of features that Google Maps offers to make your travels easier.

Before this Summer, I used to only use Google Maps as a map. I would put my destination into Maps and follow the GPS to get there. Exactly what Google Maps is for, but with this Summer's travels I discovered that Google Maps offered so much more than just basic GPS. On our cross country road trip we had no exact destinations, our plan was to drive and explore other states then stopping when we got tired. This meant we had no reservations at hotels lined up, we would just stop when we saw a town that looked like a good stop for us. Of course, we still had many hotel options, but we also knew very little about the towns we were traveling through. This is where I would turn to search Google Maps; it gave me an instant listing of every hotel around with their ratings, prices and a link to their website. This "around me" feature was great for dining as well, especially while traveling with a child, a kid-friendly restaurant was a must!

Another awesome feature I discovered during this road trip was the timeline. I have a Google account that my phone uses and so every photo I took was recorded on a Google Map Timeline. This was very exciting for me to discover because I love to scrapbook my family vacations, and  now I had an organized timeline of my photos and locations right in Google Maps.

Google Maps has always been a go-to app for me, and discovering some of these newer features is making it even better! Below is a link to a video that further discusses some of Google Maps features, enjoy!


Click here for the video!