Travel Souvenirs. Joy in a Jar in 5 Minutes.

bellahomestaging.net

I just went on a 27 hour “staycation” to Virginia Beach with a dear friend. We stayed 45 minutes from home in a condo on the beach…for 27 hours. It was actually less but we won’t nitpick. And it rained, but that was fine. We read books, had coffee, took a nap, looked at magazines, went out to eat, walked on the boardwalk, watched a movie and slept in. I get up 7 days a week at the same time for kids, jobs, church, baseball games and other random events so sleeping til 8:30 almost made me giddy. Another thing we did was went to a beach souvenir shop. We spent quite a bit of time in there because it was 1) very amusing 2) it was raining. I have a great picture I took in the store for tomorrow. (Wordless Wednesday click here.)

Anyway…this got me thinking about all the bits and pieces one picks up on a vacation. Most people come home and unpack and have this pile of “stuff” they picked up from the trip…the tangible memories. Maps, brochures, ticket stubs, tacky small whatever that makes you laugh when you see it but you really don’t know what to do with, and pictures. I am unable to scrapbook. It is not in my DNA make-up. I do not have the patience or the time. The end results is amazing but it is simply not a realistic endeavor for my life. And what do you do with the three-dimensional stuff anyway?

So out of laziness and out of compulsion for like things being together and out of a desire to remind my family of all of our fun trips I started doing this—I cull the pile, get one of my handy dandy vases (Walmart, Michaels, Garden Ridge) and pretty much shove it all in making sure the pretty stuff is on the outside.

Here is one of the jars/glass cannisters that I put together in 5 minutes from our recent trip to Quebec.

Snow from Quebec. Love this.

Voila!

Some of our Joy in Jars.

bellahomestaging.net

Along the way I have discovered others that do this. Young House Love is one of my favorite blogs. They have a great post about doing this very thing that you can read here.