Tutorial on a Tuesday...

So I promised a tutorial, and I hope that this qualifies...

I saw an idea on Pinterest. (Where else do I go to find genius ideas?!?) It was for a Food Passport. Basically it's a cute little notebook that you fill with places to go to eat in your area  (See note after tutorial for more ideas). I thought it was a great idea because me and my friends from work go out for sushi all the time and we are always saying we should try something new, but never come up with anywhere to go, so this Food Passport was perfect for our group.

Here's a list of supplies needed:

• A small, passport sized notebook (I used one that I found at JoAnn Fabrics, but they had cute ones at Archiver's as well. I bought both and let my friend decide...)
• Scrapbook paper, cardstock, or construction paper - We choose scrapbook paper because it's pretty and I have a million sheets of it lol
• Scissors and/or an Xacto knife
• Adhesive - we used a glue dot runner because it's my favorite thing, but you could use Tacky Glue, Mod Podge, etc.
• Pens
• Stickers or other embellishments (optional)
• Clear Packing Tape (also optional)

Supplies you will need...

Please Note: For the purposes of this tutorial, I had to make a new Passport because the original had already been created. I only used it in the first few steps showing how I attached the paper to the notebook. The other pictures with the decorations and the inside are of the original Passport.

First, I asked everyone what places they wanted me to include. I took this list, my supplies and my friend and we went to Starbucks. Not the ideal situation for a control freak like me (I like to be prepared and having to pack everything made me nervous about forgetting something...) but we made it work.

We picked out a cute print to use for the cover and attached that to the notebook using the adhesive. I used the glue runner and covered the notebook with it and then placed the notebook face down on the sheet of paper. Press it down really well so the paper sticks.

Notebook with adhesive

Notebook face down on paper

Then trim off the excess paper with your scissors or an Xacto knife.

Trim the excess paper

Then you decorate. We used a sticker that said "Adventures" and then added the word Food with a pen on overlapping circles of paper that we cut out (the pattern was circles, so we just cut them out. You could also use a circle punch or trace a circle onto the paper and cut it out).  We glued the circles down with the glue runner.

After decorating the front

Next we used the list and put all of the places into our Passport. We used 2 pages per place - on one side we wrote the Name of the place, Grade and Review. The other sheet says Attendees. We plan to grade the location based on food, service, etc and then write our thoughts. And we added the attendees spot so we would know which of us was able to make it. We didn't fill up the passport so we have room to add places as we think of them or as they are built in our area.

Entering places we want to go.
On left is Name of Place, Grade, and Review.
On right is Attendees with enough space for everyone who goes to sign their name

The last step is to "laminate" your passport so that it will last longer. This step is completely optional, but I like to do it since this will be going with us and probably travelling in a purse or bag and I don't want it to get ruined. To "laminate", I take strips of packing tape and cover the front cover of the notebook. I always make the strips longer so that fingerprints don't show up on it. Be careful when you do this so that you don't get air bubbles. Lay them on from top to bottom, smoothing it onto your notebook as you go. You may also want to overlap strips, but just slightly because it will be noticeable. Once you get it covered, either trim the extra tape off or fold it over the edge into the inside of the notebook. I just trimmed it because I (stupidly) started our first page on the inside cover and I didn't want to cover up where we would be writing. If you decide to use Mod Podge as your adhesive, you can use that as your sealer as well. You can skip the laminating step unless you want it to be extra durable. If you want to tape it, make sure the Mod Podge is completely dry before applying the tape or you will, most likely, end up with a mess.

Ours took about an hour to make from start to finish, mainly because we wanted to keep it simple, but also because we were short on time. I would recommend taking your time with it - plan it out and then start creating. You can add as many or as little embellishments as you want and you can change what is on the inside if you wanted. I have seen similar projects that are for date nights, so that would eliminate the attendees section. If you wanted to do it for a stay-cation or vacation, obviously you would want to include more than places to eat. You could include sights you want to see, places you want to go, things you want to do, etc. You could also do it for a trip to the zoo or aquarium - instead of places to eat, you could put the animals you may see and then check them off as you see them. Use your imagination and see what you can come up with!

As a companion to this project, I want to create a scrapbook to go along with it. I think it would be cool to have a book with a picture of the restaurant, a picture of the group that went, and then any funny or memorable things that were said or talked about. Then I want to put the Passport in a pocket within the scrapbook so we can refer to it as well. Or maybe even just copy the pages from where we went and add that to the actual page that way its right in front of me and I don't have to look through the passport. I was thinking that a Smash book or something similar would be perfect for this because we can write in it that night and then just add the pictures afterward.

So that's my Food Passport. I hope you enjoyed this idea and tutorial! As always, let me know if you need clarification on any of the steps, what products I used or if you just have questions in general :)