Tasteful way to keep track?

[Cruisemom39]

I am trying to figure out a way to "keep track" and display the cruises we have taken our children on thus far - I was thinking some type of shadow box or professionally-framed map of North America (our travels with the kids to date) that I can update by putting in a push-pin to the ports we have traveled to, or have some sort of VERY small engraved plate at the port site on the map? Can anyone help with this idea? I am not the least bit skilled in crafts or anything of the like. I was just looking for a way to hang a map in the living room that we could update as we cruise along. They have been on five cruises to date, and my memory is starting to fail as I approach 40:o - I don't want to forget anything!! Plus its a geography lesson for the kids. In addition, we relocate around the U.S. every 10-18 months with my husband's job, and have covered 6,000 miles in the past 3-1/2 years, so I could also identify the cities we have lived in on this same map. Any help you can offer would be great. Thanks!

[Flossie]

A map would be great but in addition too, you might want to check into scrapbooking. The scrapbooking craze is going strong all over the country right now.Even if you do not like crafts or are not a crafty person you can still scrapbook. Contact your local scrapbook store they will have classes that will help you . These books can be as elaborate or as simple as you want them to be. This way you can group all the cruises together or make a seperate book for each. They could probably help you at a scrapbook store with the map that you want to do and have some resources for supplies for that also. Happy Crusing!

[worldsbestcandles]

I agree completely. Scrapbooking is an excellent way to keep memories alive. And no matter how young or old your kids are, they can help! In my scrapbooks I always keep things like maps, brochures, tourbooks, etc and then after my trip I cut out pages that mean something to me to incorporate into the book. It changes the way you take pictures and remember things.

 

I also recommend having your kids keep a travel journal. For each trip give them a little diary to write in what they did everyday. They can do it when they want to, each night, in the car, on the plane, etc.. and then it is in their own words! You can pull quotes from there to put into your scrapbook that way it is remembered from their point of view. Plus every trip they will get to see what kind of little book they are getting this time (or you could use the same one, however you want to do it).

 

Just make sure everything you use (paper, adhesive, etc.) is archival and they will have memories that they can share with their kids too!

 

What a wonderful idea though! I would still have a map too, maybe not necessarily in the living room, but somewhere in the house. Give every person their own color of pushpins to show where they have been (it will be nice as they start to travel on their own to see how things spread out). On top of that have a "wish" color. These are pins that anyone can add as a place they want to go someday. Then when you go there, you can "swap" the pins for your color as a way of achieving that dream!

 

Have fun with it!:D

[hermang]

Here is another thing for each of the kids - we got Type Boxes ( I think thats what they called them) Printers use to set type from them. Hung one in each of the kids rooms and encouraged them to collect a small souvenir - spoon, thimble etc from each port they visited maybe a concert they went to. Now the grand kids can see what Mommy was upt to when she was a teen ager

[crusinhokie]

I started a map a few years ago and it is always a great conversation piece in my home. Finding the right size map and cork board took some patience but I just found that the container store has tons of sizes of cork board so that might help. I also moved a lot growing up so I selected a color of push pin for 1) places I've lived 2) domestic travel 3) intl travel. Might be worth letting each kid start their own map so as they get older and move out they could have with them.

 

Also, completely encourage journaling. I started this when I studied abroad in college and I can't tell you how many times I have referred back to them to provide travel suggestions to friends or just remember the fun. I include pictures, brochures, etc right in mine. This works better for me since I just have not patience for scrapbooking :)

 

Good luck

[Smiles3usa]

First, a disclaimer, I don't have any kids.

 

But one of my biggest passions was/is to travel and experience different cultures (and foods! :D). I bought a real nice world map and had it framed when I got married. The framing did not include any glass covering. I have stuck push pins in all the spots we've visited. For cruise visits, I have yellow pins, unless I want to visit there again for a land visit, then its a red pin; and a black pin for the long land visits. The map is on the wall of our home office. It's not "tacky" at all. One thing that really puts a smile on my face is going in there and remembering just by looking at the map. Besides, it gives me a good reminder of where I want to travel next!

 

Enjoy!

[Druke I]

I have a wall map of the world, about 4' x 5' on the wall of the den, with red stickers (dots) at each of the ports of call (and places we have been on land).

 

When our former house was for sale, we had lots of positive comments from realtors when they previewed the house. It is now mounted on the den wall in our new house.

 

Additionally, I started a spreadsheet, which lists our cruises:

 

Ship, month & year of cruise, cabin, rough itinerary, and total days of cruise.

 

Looking at the map and list brings back lots of good memories.

[Cruisemom39]

Thanks everyone (and feel free to keep the ideas coming!) - love the idea of the push pins for where we wish to go...

 

I would like to start scrapbooking, in fact I NEED to start. My kids are 9, 8 and 7 yo twins - I was diligent in keeping up with the first baby book; for the second child I was a bit more lax, and by the time the twins came along I could barely meet everyone's life needs let alone do the baby books. I have all the kids' stuff in a huge box, and another box of cruise mementos including Compass pages, pictures, stuff from ports, etc. I fully intend to start a scrapbook, and I have heard that the scrapbook stores are user-friendly! My 9 yo daughter has passed me up in that regard - she has kept a pretty good scrapbook of our moves across the country and cruises. They all have journals for each cruise (when they were old enough to write). So now all I need to do is get my butt in gear - thanks for the inspiration!!

 

I will also try the map with no glass, that should be perfect. At the risk of asking a stupid question, where would you go for a decorative map? I don't want a tacky county assessor's map or something that would give the impression of a "war plan" where I am plotting my next attack!

[Druke I]

Many of the good bookstores can help you with a map - or if you are in a large metropolitan area, thers is usually a map/flag store available.

 

Mine was printed by Michelin, and is plasticized and very durable.

[TheWog]

I love the map idea. May have to look into it.

 

We have a golf ball display case in our game room and I have golf balls from each country/island (usually painted somehow and then have the country name on it) we have gone to to represent that part of each trip.

[PETRA4U]

Hi, I travel all over the world.

 

I sort through the pictures of the trip and select a bunch of favorites.

I have a large picture frame which is done for each trip that has the multiple picture sections. I remove that and do a college on a large sheet of paper.

It only takes a little time to piece it and cut them. Titled on the bottom and most places are recognizeable. Frame it and hang it.

 

You can do it a little at a time (I slip the frame and pictures under the couch

and pull it back out to work on it if I can't do a lot at once)

 

the Collages hang in the hallway to the bedrooms/bathroom of our home.

all our friends love it when they come over. they swear that everytime they look at it that they see something different.(takes them forever to get up and down the halls) (learned this from my mom with family pics of 8 kids)

 

Brings a smile everytime you look at it and great memories all the time.

Also, my kids picked their favorites and we did a collage for each of them together. I like this better than scrapbooking. How many times do you go around opening the books?

 

Just a few of the Trips:

3 weeks in Australia (went twice - first time 8 days Sydney)

Hawaii 8 times (going back for the 9th in February)

only a few of those Collages

Rio De Janerio

Paris

Monte Carlo/monaco

Eastern Carribean cruise (RCCL)

Western Carribean Cruise (RCCL)

Alaskan Cruise (RCCL)

Amsterdam

Munich Germany & Salzberg Austria

Athens,& Greek Islands

Central American Cruise (Carnival) Belize, Costa Rica/Panama

Hawaiian Ilsand Cruise (NCL)

Aruba,

Jamica,

Bangkok Thailand (2 different Trips)

Atlantis resort on Paradise Island

Unless I look at my pics/i think I have them all ! LOL

 

LESS THAN A MONTH to

RCCL Splendor of the Seas, Med Cruise ! Yeah !!!

 

although this is not along the same things as a Corkboard, it creates the

same idea and really gets some great conversations going about travel.

 

LV

:cool:

[Iamthesea]

We have a map of the Caribbean and use those little gold stars to mark where we have been. Now, we need one of Hawaii and the Mexican Riviera.:)

 

Something I have just started doing is making a "coffee table" photo album of each of our cruises. I am using Shutterfly, Ofoto (now Kodak) and Snapfish to make this semi professional books. I look for specials on pricing and love making the books. Most of our pictures are from a digital camera and are still on the computer. I have burned them all to a CD for safe keeping, but never got around to having prints made. With the books, we have the photos right in front of us at all times. ;)

[Cruisemom39]

Something I have just started doing is making a "coffee table" photo album of each of our cruises. I am using Shutterfly, Ofoto (now Kodak) and Snapfish to make this semi professional books. I look for specials on pricing and love making the books. Most of our pictures are from a digital camera and are still on the computer. I have burned them all to a CD for safe keeping, but never got around to having prints made. With the books, we have the photos right in front of us at all times. ;)

 

I'm not understanding this - I download digital pix to these sites and then create a "coffee table album" off the site? I'll have to look at these websites..

 

I also discovered the digital photo frame - very cool if you haven't seen one. Download right into the frame and set it onto the mantel for a constant slide show of your pix running at all times for everyone to see. Also found an option to have another frame in, say, my parents' home where I can download my pix over phone line to their digital frame and they can have the same slideshow!

[hstrybuf]

We spent $12 for a map of the Caribbean in St. Maarten that is a reproduction of a 1777 map. Framed it for nothing when my company moved and was going to throw away the frame. I like it too much to put pins in it (and besides, it's under glass), but colored sticky dots might work just as well. :)

[Iamthesea]

Here are a couple of examples:

http://www.shutterfly.com/photobooks/index.jsp

 

http://www.kodakgallery.com/PhotoBookOverview.jsp?Upost_signin=PPStartPage.jsp%3Fc%3DP_StoreOverview%26project_type%3D2%26cm_re%3Dbroken_cookie*top_row_middle*text_1&&flash=detected

[Steamboatin]

We met one couple with their two children on one of our cruises who were taking two cruises a year with their children and writing the entire cost of both cruises off on their income taxes as school expenses since they were home schooling their children. If questioned they said it would be part of their history and geography lessons.

 

Sounds great as long as you are never audited I reckon.

[Flossie]

Hello Crusinmom39 and everyone else on here, glad that you started this thread. Crusinmom39 please visit your local scrapbook store I think that you will be greatly surprised at how easy scrapbooking is. You will have lots of fun doing it. I just visited a scrapbook store today and got lots of neat stuff for our next cruise scrapbook, I even took my "other half" with me and he had a great time looking for cruise related "stuff" too I would not suggest that you take a husband for your first trip to the scrapbook store but he has been with me a time or two and knew ahead of time what to expect so he was "good" today and did not hurry me.

I love everyones idea of a map, they have these shadowbox scrapbook page frames now in the scrapbook store that I really liked I might try this idea with the map in one of them. I am always amazed that every scrapbook store I go into has a different look to it and lots of different stuff.

There are so many different things on the market right now for scrapbooking . I seen today a kit that you could take marble coasters and put pictures on them it had all the stuff to transfer these and coat them, I thought that would be a great set to put cruise pictures on and to display them in a family room