Practicing what I preach...preparing to "scrap-away"

 Hi Crafters -
 In about 10 days I'll leave for a family vacation in Moab, UT.  If  you've never been there, I would strongly recommend a visit.  It's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been.  All of that aside, my goal for scrapping this trip is to do it while I'm there.  So I'll be packing up everything I need in one TravelPack with a couple of Spinders.  I've never attempted to actually complete the pages for an event while I'm there, so I thought I'd do a blog post(s) documenting the whole process. 
  First things first.  In order to bring enough without bringing too much, I'll make decisions about the number of layouts I'm going to do before I start packing.  To do this I just need to sort of "map" out the trip.  Here's our itinerary in a nutshell.
July 31 - Travel to Grand Junction, CO (1 - 6)
August 1 - Drive to Moab, Visit Colorado National Monument on the way. (1 - 6)
August 2 - Full Day River Rafting Trip (2 - 12)
August 3 - Monument Valley hike and tour (2-12)
August 4 - Canyoneering (1- 6)
August 5 - Day hike into Arches National Monument (1 - 6)
August 6 - Full day Razor Rental (2-12)
Augutst 7 - Hang out in town (1-6)
August 8 - Drive back to Grand Junction and fly home
  When I plan pages, I plan for 6 photographs per 12x12 page.  The numbers following the days events indicate the number of pages I plan to do for that event and the total number of photographs I'll choose for each of the layouts. I'll have a "Title" page in the beginning and 1-3 "snapshots and scrap traditions" pages at the end.  This is where I put fun pictures that don't necessarily fit in with any of the specific event pages.  The "snapshot" pages are a great way to include random fun shots, but avoid scrapping whole pages about one little thing.  "Scrap traditions" are the included with most of the big family events.  These cover a couple of categories - everyone writes about what they liked most about the trip, we make a list of the restaurants we visited and rate them, we generally include our road maps with notes, highlights, etc.  and then a final section that usually has tickets, memorabilia, etc.
  Next I'll do a little sketch to be sure the pages will layout properly in my album.  If they won't layout correctly, I might move a snapshot page into the middle so that the 2 page spreads are always facing each other properly.  I actually use small "sticky" notes to do these so I can get a really good sense of how things will go together. This "sticky note" layout plan will be really helpful when it comes to picking, purchasing and packing.

                    Click to view a larger image on our website.
  With this trip my plan is to do 12-14 pages.  Just knowing this allows me to be sure I have enough background paper and other "continual" elements to get a lot done, and it will be really easy to pack everything I need.
  In my next post I'll start pulling things out of my current supply collection and begin making a list of things I'll need to purchase and add before we leave town. Hopefully I'll be able to find everything I need at the Lancaster, PA CK Convention next weekend.
  I'll also be posting these directly to a page on our website.  Click here to bookmark that page on our website.
Thanks for stopping by,
Tif