On The Road|Red Wing

One of the things on my 33 list is to visit three MN cities I've never been to before. So, this past weekend, my parents and I took a day trip to Red Wing, MN. I couldn't believe how close it was to the Twin Cities and I've never been there! It's a really quaint, beautiful town, right on the Mississippi. They still have a downtown area with parking on the diagonal, which I thought was neat.

The highlights:

• Stopping at Lark Toys and getting handmade wooden block letters of my initials.
• Stopping at Lake City to see Lake Pepin.
• Shopping at Pottery Place and finding a Bell jar I couldn't resist. 
• Having lunch at Falconer's Vineyard.
• Attempting to climb Barn Bluff.
• Perusing the shelves at The Best of Times bookstore. (There are so many books I'm wanting to read right now!)

I put together this mini to record the trip.

I used two pieces of cardboard as the front and back. I added a Hambly transparency to the front piece of cardboard. Then I added a tag, a scallop punched piece of patterned paper from My Mind's Eye, a cute little owl stamp from Hero Arts, the title and a little label, both from October Afternoon.

I added travel quotes throughout from Ali Edwards' Scrapbook on the Road class. I began the album with a tag describing the reason for the trip. The first page has a piece of the brochure from the toy store, along with a picture of the new wooden block letters on my shelf.

I included a picture of the Bell jar in its new home, along with a business card from the store and a cute little tag from Office Max. I love the 7 Gypsies papers from the Lille collection. They are so pretty and perfect on their own.

Another travel quote, along with a bunch of photos from our stop to see Lake Pepin. I made this in Photoshop Elements with help from Elise. You can check out her tutorial here. I'm slowly becoming friends with Photoshop. Really loving how this looks.

I added a bunch of journaling on both sides of the grid paper. I created and printed four smaller photos from Photoshop and included a 7 Gypsies tag.

Lots of journaling on these two pages, along with a little photo of where we went hiking.

I love how this series of photos looks side by side in the album. We attempted to hike up a bluff to the summit, but just couldn't get there. Whenever we thought we were getting close, we'd realize it was just beyond our reach. Once we got to the many flights of stairs, we called it quits. My Dad climbed the stairs to see if the summit was at the top, (way to go Dad!) but there was still more after that. Seriously?! Will definitely have to go back and conquer that bluff.

I added an envelope to include a few Instax photos and the last page is another one from 7 Gypsies. Again too pretty to cover up and a great page to end on.

I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I love mini albums. They are so fun to flip through. They are an easy way to document an event or a trip. It's also a great way to use up some of those supplies. I just grabbed what I liked and made it work.

I can't wait to visit two more MN cities.

Have a lovely weekend.