DIY Family Journals Bound: Morocco

Finally! Last year in March we took, what was to us, an epic one month trip to Morocco. We saw the Atlas mountains, the Sahara desert, the markets of Marrakesh and Fes and chilled in the sea-side town of Essaouira. And a bunch of other stuff too. While we were there, we journalled our faces off. If that's a word. We brought art supplies. We wrote down our experiences. We mapped our adventures. We collected postcards and brochures for gluing in as well. We started with pre-made blank signatures which I posted about here before we went on our trip.

Now this is what I've been staring at for a year now. Filled signatures waiting to get bound together.

First we cut the piece of thick cardboard I recently hoarded, down to size.

Next we backed a map of Fes with some Tyvek paper to give it some extra strength.

We glued in the cardboard covers, leaving enough space to sew in the signatures down the centre spine.

Wrapped and glued the map/Tyvek sheet over onto the edge of the inside covers.

We made a template for where the binding holes were in each signature. We used this to poke holes in the spine, in preparation for sewing them in.

After they were all sewed in, we glued in end sheets on the inside of both the front and back covers.

Done! Is it perfect? Oh dear no. It's full of handmade flaws and "learnings" for our next ones; but every boo boo was made with heart and we are thrilled to have this as a truly personal momento of our trip. Here are some of our highlights from the inside:

A few of the post cards and photos we had printed for
 Spud's show-and-tell at school when we got back.

I sometimes added thought starters to Spud's journals.
We found the signatures with grid paper useful
for making up mazes or playing yahtzee.

We took the book Drawing Lab with us so we could do
 drawing projects on the way, like blind contour drawings of camels!
Bottom left was inspired by Angry Birds.

Top left is a map I did, under Spud's direction, documenting the world
 we created in our room, one rainy afternoon, with a lot of pillows
 and a lot of imagination. I don't know what the top
right is anymore but it looks fun!

Phew. Now it's time to get busy on our Vienna journals. Then our London ones. Hopefully it will take less than a year this time!

Photo Friday #48

JARDIN MAJORELLE, MARRAKECH   |   TRAVELS WITH KID

Jardin Majorelle: first the gardens of French painter Jacques Majorelle, then the gardens of Yves St. Laurent, now a memorial in which the public can roam, explore, and escape the urban, busy nature of Marrakech. Oh, and the colour! Yves St. Laurent said that it was actually Marrakech that taught him about colour. But first go down this street ...

Pass by the calèche ...

... then pass by some very cute shops with beautiful, non-touristy handmade items. And you are there.

For more of our posts on Morocco, click here. Thanks to Delicious Baby for hosting Photo Friday!

Photo Friday #47

PATISSERIE DES PRINCES, MARRAKECH   |   TRAVELS WITH KID

A unique combination of sweet and savoury this pastry, pastilla, was stuffed with chicken and spices and topped with sugar and cinnamon. Sounds odd but surprisingly yummy.

I'd like to say that the kid bravely tried one of these. But he did not. He enjoyed a chocolate cake treat that reminded him more of home. Originally we planned to go to a higher end restaurant and try pastilla in its pigeon carnation but we never got around to that. Next time.

Thanks to Delicious Baby for hosting Photo Friday. Pop over to share your own travel pics or to just get into some serious armchair travel with others.

Photo Friday #44

PURPLE PUPPET GOES TO MOROCCO  |  TRAVELS WITH KID

Here's Purple Puppet (yup, that's his name) on day 1 of our 28 day trip to Morocco. We are waiting for the subway to our hometown airport. Look at him. Exhausted already.

After a good night's sleep, and a little breakfast in Casablanca, he's feeling much better.

His favourite parts of travelling with Spud? Keeping him company on trains, planes and buses. Sometimes he even got to go out and see the sites.

But most of the time he was found keeping guard of our luggage. And he never complained.

Well. Almost never. Sometimes he just had a little freakout.

You would expect no less from such a wildly furry, purple creature, really.

Check out other posts about our travels in Morocco.

Thanks to Delicious Baby for hosting Photo Friday each week. Share your travel pics there too or check out some other travel posts from some very talented, travel-savvy participants.

Photo Friday #43

ESSAOUIRA, MOROCCO  |  TRAVELS WITH KID

Essaouira — a seaside, walled, and windy little town that was definite highlight of our recent Moroccan adventure. It's so windy that it's a kite boarding haven. And Hubs took full advantage.

There's Hubs heading to the water with his board under arm and kite in the sky. So brave. Or crazy. We'll discuss this later.

Being from a seaside city ourselves we are very use to the presence of gulls. But Essaouira definitely has more gulls than we've ever seen before. This is our rooftop top patio at our riad.

They really are at every turn.

This might look like one of those situations where the gulls show up, say, when the fishers come in at the end of the day or something — but no — you could take this shot at anytime of day, any day of the week and it will always be fluttering with busy gull activity. Can you believe we spent a week here and did not get pooped on? Seriously. None of us. Not once.

 

So being a seaside town, naturally fish is on the menu. Here are some fishing boats and you can see the old ramparts that surround the city here.

Whatever is freshly grown nearby makes an appearance on carts throughout the medina. Unfortunately, since you can't peel or scrub them, strawberries were on our "no" list of food. A shame.

We definitely ate our share of fish (and of course oranges and dates too) but crepes made an appearance once in awhile — just one of the legacies the French left behind. Merci.

Awww. The boys making a heart. We heart you Essaouira.

Check out other posts about our travels in Morocco.

Thanks to Delicious Baby for hosting Photo Friday each week. Share your travel pics there too or check out some other travel posts from some very talented, travel-savvy participants.

Photo Friday #41

BALOONING AROUND MOROCCO   |   TRAVELS WITH KID

Not the hot air kind. The long-skinny-twisty kind. One of the great things about having kids is that you have a built in excuse to bust out the big kid in you where ever you are. Hubs brought his big kid with us to Morocco, as well as his compact balloon-making kit and his newly acquired skills.

Here he is in the Sahara hard at work experimenting with a new hat design.

Avant Garde I'd say ...

Our guide humoured us and modelled it as well.

En garde!

Sometimes the hats were a lot simpler. This little guy seemed to like his.

And this flower went to his big sister who was at an age where it would be immodest to pose for a photo.

This creation is a fortress (attached to a towel rack) equipped with swords and grenades and other crazy balloon weapons. Look out! It turned out to be a great activity for having some down time in the hotel after a long day of touristing.

Check out other posts about our travels in Morocco.

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