Islands of the Mediterranean

I've finished all the port pages (and a couple of others) from our Mediterranean cruise now so it's time to turn those pages into an album. 

I like to start each port with my sub-title page on the right-hand side of the album so I knew that I would need to 'even up' the pages for any port where I made an odd number of pages, either by making an extra page for the port or by slotting in a page from an onboard event. As it turned out, I made even numbers of pages for seven of the ports and I have a page from the Battle of the Bartenders that can fill the odd space after the eighth. 

Now I can turn my attention to the start of the book. I need an even number of pages before the first port, and I have already made a page from one of our formal nights which can now become page two of the album.

I had three ideas for elements on my title page: using a map print paper and highlighting the area we cruised; using a postcard with a map of our route; using a geotag cut-file to create frames for small photos of some of the places we visited. Ultimately I couldn't combine all three and the postcard got bumped to another page (see below) while I used two different cut-files from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files here, making this page my DT post today.

Europe is in one corner of my background paper so I framed that using one frame from Polaroids x6. I then covered up the Americas with a simpler paper to split my page into two parts and give me a neutral background for five geotags from Geocache Icons which I backed with photos from our trip. I made a column behind my polaroid for our itinerary and filled in the space below with the year and a ticket cluster.

I often close my cruise albums with a page for our return to the UK port, and that page generally has a pocket to hold our Cruise Log. However, this time we sailed from Newcastle upon Tyne, the port isn't particularly photogenic and I have no photos from our arrival, so my last page is from our last port. I still want to include the Cruise Log so I've made an extra page which also includes my postcard, but I've gone for 8" by 11" and only used one side. The background was a fresh sheet but the pieces I used for the pocket were among my larger scraps.

And finally, I need a title piece for the window on the front of the album. That's around 3.5" square so obviously I used more scraps and leftover stickers. Neither the letters nor the numbers appear in the album, but I was really focusing on their size here. I needed letters small enough to fit the whole word 'Mediterranean' in the width available and then numbers that would fill the remaining space neatly. 

So that's it! Another album finished that can take its place on the shelf.

What's next? I haven't finished the album for our cruise to the Canary Islands in 2021 so I'm going to return to that one. I've enjoyed the process this year of alternating between the Mediterranean album and other pages so I'm going to continue that approach for now. We have another holiday coming up this summer but I'm hoping I might finish the Canary Islands album before that comes round.

Supplies: Cardstock - Carta Bella Gather; Paper - Heidi Swapp Sail Away, Photoplay Travelogue, Cocoa Vanilla Studio Heart & Home; Letters - Creative Devotion; Numbers - Doodlebug, Fancy Pants; Stickers - Photoplay, Heidi Swapp; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin, Little B; Enamel Hearts - Cocoa Vanilla Studio

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

(Pages 57 & 58 for the year.)