Family Vacation Memory Crafts

Display your family's beachside treasures in a homemade collection box. If you visit the same beach again and again, you can create an entire mantel's worth of framed shells, illustrating your finds over the years.

Put your vacation adventures on prominent display by creating a map memory board that traces where you've been.

Maps, ticket stubs, and receipts add an authentic touch to a vacation scrapbook, but incorporating them can be messy. Instead, organize your memorabilia in a three-ring binder with plastic sleeves meant for business and baseball cards. Slide souvenirs into compartments, or if they don't fit, use a paper clip to attach them to a pocket. Trim maps, and slide them into the binder's outside sleeves (even on the spine).

Store snapshots from a recent vacation in a wooden box (made of two picture frames) that displays its theme.

Exhibit keepsakes from your family vacation -- and recall the exciting days spent traveling -- in shadow boxes that you can display in any room of the house.

Keep your favorite vacation ephemera, such as maps, menus, and flyers, on display by using them to decorate soup tins and spice boxes.

Pack a hole punch and a loose-leaf ring to string together maps, postcards, and other souvenirs you collect on the road.

A video from your vacation can be transformed into a keep-at-hand photo flip-book for repeated enjoyment.

Hold on to favorite travel memories by storing them in vacation memory jars. Filled with souvenirs collected on trips and pictures developed afterward, they are like little worlds that can be visited again and again. Kids can also add to them or rearrange them anytime they like. Bent wire can be used to lower and position objects in a thin-necked jar.

Rather than let vacation photos languish in a drawer, why not bind them into mini albums as soon as you get them in your hands? To make one, simply stack your pictures and sandwich them between decorative paper covers. Be sure the edge of the stack that will be bound is perfectly flat -- it won't work if the pieces don't line up exactly -- and clamp them in place with binder clips. Use as many photos as you like, as long as your clips are big enough. Brush a thick coat of white craft glue over the edge; let dry overnight. Add self-adhesive bookbinding tape and a decorative self-adhesive label to the cover, if desired.

Don't stash away or discard maps from your favorite vacation spots. Use them to make these handy coasters and you'll be reminded of that special destination every time you reach for one.

To make these mini travel photo pages, slip a piece of heavy card stock into an airmail envelope. Using a utility knife, cut out face of envelope, leaving backing and decorative border intact; repeat with 4 more envelopes. Cut photos to size; insert into envelopes. Stack envelopes; glue all flaps together using an archival glue stick. Cut 1 envelope-length slit along 1 edge of scrapbook page. Slip flaps through; fold over, and tape to opposite side to secure.

Transform out-of-date travel books from visited cities into accordion scrapbooks using the original covers, a few of the pages, and maps. You can showcase photos from your trip as well as printed ephemera gathered along the way, such as business cards, wine labels, cafe napkins, and sightseeing scraps.