3M *Mini Book Monday*

Hi, hello, and welcome to this first [late] edition of Mini Book Monday! This is my creation for the week, a mini of a weekend trip I took to Morocco, the summer of 2008. My travel partners that go around were Kori, my perpetual travel mate, and our friend Mark. We also, along the way, acquired "new" Marc, a cutie from Cally who we adored!

Surprisingly, I don't have many good photos from this trip, back then I was on a scrapbooking hiatus and thus not thinking in scrapbook mode. I was just going with the flow and was more worried about living in the moment, than having photos to remember the moments by! C'est la vie! But that's also one good reason for making a mini: not enough photos to make a whole 12x12 album and too many photos for more than a few layouts.

I'm calling this the 3M update because it's a Mini about Marrakech, Morocco using lots of Maya Road and Maya Mist! [I suppose technically it could be the 6M post but we'll keep it simple.]

The album itself is the Maya Road Canvas Pocket Binder Book. This is the first time I've ever used canvas in my scrapbooking and I have to say I now LOVE it! It's so versatile! You can paint it, draw on it, mist it. You name it :)

I didn't really have a solid plan of how I was going to decorate the cover so I just went to town with some gold and orange mist, turquoise acrylic paint, some decorative chipboard, and Thickers. I love the color from the mist and the paint. And I love the dimension from the chipboard and the Thickers!

For the inside pages, I used the Basic Grey Marrakech collection. How appropriate ;) I have to add that this is line is by far and away my most favorite of all of the Basic Grey lines! And that's saying something! I love the great blues and oranges, the fun patterns, the great shapes. Now having been to Marrakech, it just seems Morocco to me! But I also think it's a versatile enough line so don't shy away from the "theme" of it. You can make it work for just about anything.

I wanted to include a lot of journaling, so that I'd be able to tell the story and my perspective of the few photos I did end up taking. Oh!! And I have to add that I used a few of my friend Marc's (a Moroccan acquisition) photos in this book, too supplement my paltry group of photos. He had some really amazing shots! I'll point them out along the way.

The basic formula for this book was 4x5 in photo coupled with a 4x5 in rectangle of that amazing BG patterned paper. I printed a title for most of the pages using the AL Modern Type font and added my handwritten journaling plus whatever sticker or chipboard embellishments I felt would enhance it. This was a total BG production and I think that's just fine.

I wanted the photos for this mini to be as large as possible, because there are so many things going on in them. Morocco was a virtual schmorgesbord of activity, color, scent, etc. Believe me, the photos do not do it justice.

It seems that light was a reoccurring theme in these photos. I'm so happy I was able to capture a beam of sunlight streaming in through the slats in the "roof" of the Souks. It really shows you how piecemeal this massive market truly is!

This was one corner of the Souks that Mark and I came across. It was ramshackle and dilapidated. Almost as if a bomb had gone off. There was graffiti and rubble everywhere. But it also wasn't for sale. A point made in spray paint on the wall. Very interesting for an area completely bent on haggling and selling. As I was taking this photo, Mark was about 20 ft behind me hassling over the price of a jewelry box.

And of course, I had to include a photo of the Djemaa el Fna, the large square in the medina and the center of it all, quite literally, in Marrakech. If this photo looks blurry and disorienting, then it did the actual scene slight justice. Words cannot even describe all that was going. People were putting on magic tricks, playing with cobras, offering photos with monkeys, drumming on bongos, selling food, begging, milling about and a million other things. It was so hard to take it all in!

Which is why we decided to get out of the city for a bit. The next day we did a day trip out to the foothills of the Atlas Mountains and into the Ourika Valley.

In such sharp contrast to the "bustle" (if you can call it that) of Marrakech, was the quiet restfulness of the countryside.

Also on the agenda for the day, a hike to a waterfall. Lets just say we weren't exactly prepared for hiking that day, at least Kori and I weren't. These are the shoes we showed up in. We thought it would be fine considering our guide was wearing those plastic gelly sandals. Boy were we wrong! He ended up being a little mountain goat in those things! K-train and I did our best to keep up.

The falls were definitely worth it! A virtual oasis in the middle of the hot Moroccan mountains! Marc captured the footpath we had to walk across to get them and a few people luxuriating in the welcoming cold water. Being the non-outdoorsy type, I was just happy to not be hiking anymore!

These last few photos are my favorites (the above is one of Marc's). They're of real Moroccan women going about their day to day lives. And that's what I love so much about traveling. Getting to see how other cultures live and learning about their customs and traditions is truly thrilling to me. Even the mundane aspects of their lives take on new meaning for an outsider looking in.

The final page is a wrap up of our trip. I'd be lying if I said Morocco was the most fantastic place I'd ever visited. It's dirty and hot and often times disorienting. But while it wasn't my favorite, it still was an adventure and a new place to explore. I'll always have those memories and now, I have a fun mini as well.

Thanks for stopping by this inaugural Mini Monday! Leave me a comment to tell me what you think. What kind of mini books you like to make. What themes and places and events? I'd love to hear from you. And don't forget, one lucky comment-or, from one of the four planned Mini Monday posts will win a special Mini themed RAK! Can't wait to hear from you all :) Happy scrapping!

xxbesos

j.leija