Disney Journal Finally Complete!

And it's only been 13 months since our last trip to Disney World!

I've done scrapbook pages and even photo books in the past, but this time I wanted to incorporate some of the memorabilia and receipts we collected.

I started out with drawers full of stuff! Disney stickers, maps, scrapbooking papers and die cuts, you name it!

Not to mention Ziploc bags stuffed with papers and junk!

The above pictures were taken after I was finished, so there was tons more when I started!

I first thought of buying a travel journal and using that for pictures and stories. But then I realized I'd need a book that I could add pages to. So I purchased a regular photo album with rings at Target. I think it was on clearance, too. It already had all the photo page protectors I would need.

I cut my own strips for captions out of cardstock I had on hand instead of using the flimsy paper ones that came with the photo album.

I made cardstock divider pages for each section of the book, using tabs I already had.

Maps, stamps, stickers - it all got used!

I divided my book into sections - On Our Way (to document our road trip), Downtown Disney, Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Our Resort, Restaurants, Special Moments, and Characters.

I think if I do a journal like this again, I'll divide it into Day One, Day Two, etc. Sometimes we went to two different parks on the same day, so I'd like to document that.

On each of the park divider pages, I made a pocket and included a park map. It's so handy to pull the maps out as we plan for our next trip!

I included leftover Fast Passes, our Key to the World cards (park tickets, room key, dining privilege and charge card all in one!), receipts, and even a special birthday card Mr. Lego received from the princesses at the Akershus restaurant.

 The dining plan is a big part the expenses for our Disney trips. I kept a brochure outlining what restaurants participated in the dining plan. And then I recorded where we ate, and in some cases how much it cost. See, we got the dining plan for free, and I wanted to keep track of how much we would have spent on sit-down meals.

Looks like we ate a lot in Epcot!

And of course I took pictures of the food!

Here are some other pages from the journal:

My advice if you want to make a journal commemorating a Disney trip (or any other trip, for that matter) is to keep everything - ticket stubs, brochures, maps, anything! And most of those items are free, so get several. You might want to cut them up later, like I did with the maps! If you have more than one of them, you can let your creativity flow and not worry about ruining a memento.

Also, take a little notebook and jot things down that you want to remember - cute things the kids said or funny things that happened. Believe me, after 13 months, those things will be hard to recall!