Month: January 2016

If you love to travel, you probably possess a deep appreciation for experiencing new sights, sounds, meeting new people, and perhaps even immersing yourself in a totally different culture. Travel expands the mind and there is so much out there for you to explore.

But how do you document and preserve your travel experiences? Taking photos is sometimes not enough; you want to journal the whole trip in a way that does it justice. The solution is to create your own travel journal, and it is simple to do.

Document your next adventure by documenting your experiences in a travel journal.

If your tickets are bought and you are counting the minutes until you depart, it is the perfect time to plan how you will write your travel journal. You can, of course, do this for trips you have already completed, as long as the experience is still fresh in your memory, so that you can include all of those important details about your travel experience.

Your Journal as a Travel Memoir

When it comes time to write for your travel journal, you may wonder where to begin. It is best to take a notebook or your laptop with you, because a well-written journal captures the experiences in the moment. Write your thoughts as soon as possible about each day’s experience. Here are a few other tips to get you started:

• Take Lots of Notes: It is wise to document all the really important moments, so you can include them in the journal. It is so easy to forget something unless you write it down! Have a small notebook with you at all times to jot down reminders or any special detail you want to remember to include.

Decide if this journal is for you or if you will share with your friends. This could have an impact on what you may want to include in you journaling and it sets the tone for how you write it.

• Choose Your Audience: Decide if this journal is for you or if you will share with your friends. This could have an impact on what you may want to include in you journaling and it sets the tone for how you write it.
• Choose What Experiences to Include: You don’t want to write something the length of War and Peace. Your travel journal should highlight the places and experiences that you will want to remember from your trip when you look back on it 20 years from now. Choose what you think you will want to remember most.
• Making the Journal a Good Read

How your write the journal can either sound like you are listing off your itinerary (kind of boring) or it can take your readers on the journey with you. By all means include a synopsis of your itinerary, but it should expand with details that bring it to life:

• Include your route plotted on a map.

 

• List and describe some of the people you meet on your journey (include photos of them if you can).

 

• Describe people places and things in detail. Cuisine is often a big part of travel experiences, so if that is true for your trip, include some description of your meals and take some photos to go with it.

Write the details you wish to remember about your journey down as they happen.

What Not to Do When Travel Journaling

• Don’t use the same words repetitively; search for the right words to describe things as you see them and capture the story of your trip. Avoid listing anything; don’t write “and then we did this, and then I did that”. Take the reader on the journey with you, as if you were telling your best friend about your adventure.

 

• Include small details about how the destination made you feel. Write about the sounds or aromas, and tap into all that your senses experienced. Include some dialog if there were meaningful or funny conversations you want to remember.Capture the Trip with VisualsThe journal is not complete without visual images. You can sketch some of the buildings you see, or the people you meet, to help store them in your memory. If drawing is not your thing, take numerous, captivating, pictures with your phone or camera to illustrate your journal.

  Save your ticket stubs or any unique bottle labels. You can scan them into a PDF document and include them as visual images in your journal.

  Publishing your Travel Journal

  Once you are back from your trip it is time to preserve your journal. Think it will be hard to do? Think again. Navigating the airports or the road maps you used on your trip was probably more difficult!

  With digital bookmaking, you can go online to sites like Bookemon.com, where the process is simple, fast, and fun. The result is a professionally published book that looks straight out of the travel section of your local bookstore. Along with being incredibly easy, it is also affordable enough that you can choose to order extra copies and share your travel journal with friends and family.

  First go online and register for a free account with Bookemon, and then pick a template for your book’s layout. Next, upload your content directly from PDF or Word files and then adjust and customize the pages. You design the entire book with a few clicks, from choosing a special font for your written content to adding clip art from the menu of options. Finally, you can upload and edit photos or drawings directly to the pages of your book.

  Preserving your experiences in a travel journal can provide you joy many years from now as you read your own thoughts and look back on all the amazing things that you saw throughout your journey.

  You will be thankful that you preserved your memories in a way that stands the test of time. Try it out for free. There is no obligation to buy anything unless you choose to purchase affordability priced copies of your journal to share.

“Children are made readers on the laps of their parents, ” author Emilie Buchwald once said.

And she was on to something. Reading offers an opportunity to spend quality time with your children while also setting them up for success.

We recently caught up with one parent who even went as far as to start a book club with her daughter.

Cindy Hudson is the author of Book by Book: The Complete Guide to Creating Mother-Daughter Book Clubs, and is also the creator of MotherDaughterBookClub.com.

Here she talks about the benefits she’s found in writing a book and the rewards of starting a book club with her child.

How can writing a book be a great experience?

1. Writing a book, especially nonfiction, can help you spread the news about something you are passionate about to others.

2. While researching and writing, you are likely to discover more about your topic than you knew when you got started.

3. You often get to connect with other people who are interested in the same things you are. I have stayed in touch with several moms, authors and librarians that I met while researching my book.

4. Talking about your book with the new people you meet often leads to interesting conversations.

How can it benefit your children?

Having the ability to read well impacts so many aspects of a person’s life. When children see their parents reading and writing, they are more likely to engage in these activities themselves and develop higher literacy skills.

How did you (and your family) get into writing/book clubs?

Reading has always been a big part of our family life. From the time my two daughters were born, my husband and I both sat with them and read. First, there were board books that were easy for their baby fingers to grasp and turn. Then came picture books. We started reading classic children’s tales to them long before they could read themselves, because they could understand the story.

I was in a book club with other adult friends, where I saw the value of talking about books as a way of tackling big issues. So I decided to start a book club with my oldest daughter, who was then 9, and other moms and their daughters. It was such a hit my younger daughter couldn’t wait to turn 9 and get started in a book club of her own.

When planning the meetings we hosted, I discovered that there were few resources out there to help out people in mother-daughter or parent-child book clubs that I decided to write a book based on my own experiences, including the advice of authors, librarians and other experts.

How has it impacted your family?

I know that the book clubs in the book I wrote have encouraged all of us to keep reading together, which I believe has led to a greater depth of understanding about our distinct personalities, and has helped us to remain close as a family over the years.

Follow Cindy Hudson on Twitter.

Want share your book? Try out Bookman!

A child’s healthy love of books often begins when they discover the magic hidden in a great picture storybook; one that they can connect with or relate to. Do you remember a few special books from your childhood, those stories that seemed like they were written just for you? Do you wish you could create the perfect picture storybook, written just for your child?

There are many great books already out there, perhaps some you enjoyed when you were a child, but nothing beats a story that is personal. The good news is you actually can create your own picture storybook, personalized with your own message, illustrations, or pictures, and make it extra magical for your child.

Children develop a love of books early on, beginning with picture storybooks.

Who knows your child (or grandchild) better than you? Think about how they would react to a book where the main character is their favorite toy, stuffed animal, doll, or even a book where they themselves are the hero. You could craft your story to be personally relatable to what is happening in their life right now ( like starting pre-school, getting a new baby brother or sister, helping around the house, or learning to share more with siblings), then capture their attention with photos of them and the people they love throughout the book.

A Few Ideas to Inspire

You picture storybook can inspire your child to try and succeed in facing the everyday challenges they face and even some of the common fears they may have. Children often connect with the messages woven into stories better than they do with the advice or guidance from the adults in their life.

Experts say, that a book is also a great way to share a tale that teaches children important life lessons, as well as entertains them. You could focus the story you create on valuable things like:

• Showing gratitude
• Being kind
• Helping others
• The importance of telling the truth.

Maybe consider making the picture storybook about a precious memory, like the story of their birth. Remember that pictures or even your own illustrations can be included.

Perhaps this all sounds wonderful, but you question your craftiness abilities and have no idea where to begin. Relax. There are amazing, easy to use, websites, like Bookemon.com, where anyone can create and publish a picture storybook and achieve professional looking results.

With online digital bookmaking software, anyone can create beautiful books for their children.

You can get started with digital book-making at Bookemon.com, by logging on and creating a free account. Yes, it really is free to create your entire book online, and see exactly what the finished product will look like, and then decide if you want to purchase copies. But, there is no obligation for you to buy anything if you don’t wish to.

This amazing software gives you the tools you need, simple steps to follow, and the process is so simple and fun, you may want to make more than one book once you see what you able to create yourself. Prepare to amaze yourself with your creativity.

How it Works

Once you have your free account set up, you simply choose the template you want to use to lay out your book, then upload any written content from PDF or Word Files, and customize the pages with a special font or clip art from the menu of options.

Next, you can upload and edit photos or even your own drawings to the pages of your book. There are endless possibilities in what you can create and the professional looking results you will see when you are done may inspire you to make several beautiful picture storybooks that your child will love and treasure forever. Your books could be great, personal gifts for all the children in your life.

Get started today! It’s simple, fun, and it costs nothing to give it a try.

All the best recipes–for the ages!

Create a fun, new family cookbook project that everyone can join in and express their creativity through cooking. Moms and dads, grandparents, children, aunts and uncles can collaborate in a family cookbook filled with their best recipes to share and hand down from generation to generation. What better way to have fun, share memories and create what is sure to become an heirloom? A few simple steps can get you started toward creating your own family masterpiece

Do the Planning First

The first thing to decide is how you want your cookbook laid out and how you want it to look. Do you want to create a cookbook of homestyle recipes or branch out and include that fabulous recipe you picked up on vacation? At this stage, you also want to decide on the number of pages you want your cookbook to have, how you want to design the cover and whether you want black and white or colored photos or a combination of each. Do you want to intersperse your cookbook with family stories, children’s drawings or other special differences that will make your cookbook unique? Making these basic decisions early on can make your project go faster and result in just the look you want.

Compiling a cookbook is a great family project.

Collecting Recipes and Photos

This isn’t necessarily the easiest part of the project, but it can be the most fun. Ask family members to send you their favorite at-home recipes. If they live close by, you can do this in person. Those who don’t live nearby can either mail recipes to you or email you and include photos as an attachment. You can then download them to your own files. Don’t forget to ask for suggested titles and to use standard measurements and include cooking time, pan sizes and how much the recipe makes. If you have a style format in mind for how the recipes will be written out on the pages, try to include that too. It can make compiling the pages less work later on.

Organization

Now that you are happily surrounded by piles of recipes, photos and whatever else you have decided to include in your cookbook, it’s time to get organized. Having the family involved in this part of the project can be helpful and has the bonus of making them feel as though they are really contributing to the effort. At this point, you have to decide how to lay out how your finished cookbook will look. Do you want to sort recipes by the name of the contributor, such as Aunt Hazel or Grandmother Rose? You can also sort recipes by year if you have favorites that belonged to Grandma or earlier generations. Another option is to sort recipes by food category, such as meats, vegetables, cakes or cookies, and place the family member’s name with the recipe. Additional things to think about are whether you want to index your cookbook to locate recipes easily or whether you want to add a few blank pages to write in additional recipes later.

Finishing Your Cookbook

This is actually the easiest part and can be fun to let the family join in and make suggestions. Bookemon lets you create a cookbook using templates or your own designs with frames, clipart, borders and backgrounds, plus creative design tools. You can also download your own photos, files and graphics to customize your cookbook. Your completed ebook is absolutely free for download and sharing, or you can order print copies at a reasonable price. Start creating your book to join the fun.

If you have dreamed of writing a book and getting it published, it may be easier than you think to make it happen. Many creative people have that same dream, but what stops them is not knowing how to accomplish it.

Online publishing can sound confusing and difficult, and maybe you are not exactly a technical expert with computer programs. The good news is you don’t need to be.

Today, publishing your own book is simple enough that just about anyone can do it. It is also very affordable to do. Thankfully, there are websites designed to simplify the creative process for you, reducing the work down to a few clicks and simply dragging photos where you want them on the page.

Downloading and creating your book online is so easy almost anyone can do it!

One great option is Bookemon.com, which makes it incredibly easy and affordable to produce a book that looks like it came from a bookstore. The best part is you can try making one for free and the possibilities are only limited by your imagination.

If This Still Sounds Difficult, Think Again

Bookemon’s All-Purpose Online Book Creator lets you create your own books using any combination of Adobe PDF, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Photos, Text, and Graphics. So, you can easily turn your writing, blogs, drawings, images, documents and any other variety of content into professional quality books in print.

How it works:

• You should write the content (whether it is a story, comic book, photobook, cookbook, whatever you imagine) and have it saved in a Word document, PDF, PowerPoint file, jpg photo, text, or graphic program.
• Next step is logging on to the Bookemon website and creating a free account.
• Then, choose a template to layout and create your book in.
• Now, you simply upload your Word, PDF document, PowerPoint- whatever methods you saved the content in.

Basic Steps: As Easy As 1, 2, 3

1) All you need to do is find the icon “Add Doc” and click it; Click the button “Upload” on the media library of tab labeled “Document” and once the file is uploaded, you will see the document icon with a green ” + ” at the corner.

2) Simply click the green ” + ” and it will be added into the book exactly as you have created it. For example, your title header and the page numbers you have on your pages will appear exactly as they are in your document.

3) You may check specific pages that you want or click “Select All” to apply all the pages into your book.

Creating a book online so simple to do and the results will amaze you.

To add photos to your book pages, it is as easy as clicking the “Upload” function in the book making program.

• After you have uploaded your photos, they will be shown as icons in a “Photo Library”. Simply drag the photos from your photo library onto the page or into an “Image” box.
• Finally, adjust and customize the pages by choosing the font from the menu of options. You may also want to add some pizazz to your pages from a selection of clip art.

Your book can be anything you imagine it to be. This site provides endless possibilities to create virtually any type of book and there is no obligation to buy. You can make a photobook that tells a story, a custom book and have your child be a character in it, or create your own cookbook. You are the writer, creator, and publisher!

There are so many possibilities and types of books you can make online and getting started is simple, fun and it costs you nothing to give it a try.

Many successful people throughout history have kept journals. From Presidents to poets, people usually journal because chronicling daily thoughts and experiences can create a meaningful way to both remember and share their life’s journey.

You can remember almost every important detail of your life by reading your journal.

Scientific research supports that journaling provides a few unexpected benefits, mainly because as you write your journal, you are utilizing the left side of your brain, which is analytical and rational. While your left brain is working, the right side of the brain is free to create and process your emotions.

So essentially, writing a journal can be therapeutic because it removes mental blocks and allows you to access your full brain potential. This can unlock greater understanding of yourself and everyone around you.

Should My Journal be Secret?

We all remember those little diaries we had as a child with the lock and key on them. They unfortunately made us think that all of our journaling should be top secret. But, that is far from the truth, unless of course you really want to keep your journey private. But, consider this: Your journal could be something that your child or grandchild would treasure many years from now. Your story could guide them through times of struggle or challenges. Your journey could teach them something about themselves and their family history.

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, says it best, “It has never been easy for me to understand why people work so hard to create something beautiful, but then refuse to share it with anyone, for fear of criticism.”

Journaling is the ideal way to share your journey with others and preserve memories.

If you journal through your life’s journey, eventually you will have a masterpiece (or several of them) that contain important experiences and many of the emotions you have felt through the years. There can be times of challenge, tragedy, and triumph captured in the day-to-day musings written in your journal. Often, being able to share your journey and the wisdom and insight you gained along the way can make a difference in someone else’s life.

Recent research in neuroscience reveals that our brain is actually hardwired to respond to a story – people crave stories to feed that need for a “connection” to someone who understands their personal plight. So, there can be joy in writing and reading about your journey, especially when you preserve it and share it with others.

Some benefits to journaling include:

• Personal clarity: If you ever feel like thoughts and emotions are jumbled and confusing inside, taking a few minutes to write your thoughts and feelings will bring some clarity to the situation. It allows you to step back and “connect the dots” to any confusing parts of your journey.
• Release anger and stress: Holding emotions in may be socially expected, but you can pour your heart out in your journal, releasing stress, sadness and frustrations. By doing this, you will feel calmer and better able to stay in the present.
• Find solutions to problems: Have you ever found a solution to a dilemma and thought, “It was right in front of me the whole time!” Problem-solving is usually a left-brained activity, using your analytical perspective, but sometimes solutions are found by engaging your right-brained, creative and intuitive thinking. Writing unlocks your hidden capabilities.

Where do You Begin?
It all begins with your first entry. Most people include the year and date at the head of each post. Write about your day, the problems you are facing and wonderful moments that occurred that might seem insignificant to anyone but you. Write about the big events and the small personal ones. Include some description about how the events of the day made you feel. Let it be a true reflection of you and your journey.

Once you have written your journal for a while, it might be time to preserve it by getting it published. This part may actually be more fun than pouring your life experiences into your journal. There are websites online that allow you to create your own books with digital software. The result is a professionally printed book that you and your family will cherish and perhaps hand down to future generations.

A perfect example is Bookemon.com, which makes it incredibly easy and affordable to produce a beautiful book that looks like it came from a bookstore. Simply, register for a free account with Bookemon and then pick a template for your book’s layout. Next, upload your content directly from PDF or Word files and then adjust and customize the pages by choosing a special font or clip art from the menu of options. Finally, you can upload and edit photos or drawings directly to the pages of your book.

Each of us have our own journey and a personal story to tell. Journaling can provide you joy many years from now as you read your own thoughts as they happened and remember your journey. Your journals can be meaningful treasures for your children or grandchildren. Getting started is simple, fun and it costs you nothing to try it out

Everyone loves a good story of struggle and triumph. It can shine a light on lessons learned, give readers living examples of perseverance, and can provide hope for someone going through similar circumstances. There is tremendous comfort in knowing we are not the only ones to experience difficulty or challenge, so when you share your own story, you may actually be helping someone with your insight and wisdom.

Maybe you think writing your story is self-indulgent or silly. But it is not. Simply put, our stories can inspire, teach, encourage, and in some cases, provide solutions. Recent research in neuroscience reveals that our brain is actually hardwired to respond to a story – people crave stories to feed that need we all have for a “connection” to someone who understands our personal plight.

Telling your story can actually be a beacon of hope for your readers.

Why Share Your Personal Story?
Well, it might not always be easy to admit that our path to success has been a rollercoaster or that we have experienced tremendous loss. But there are several benefits to sharing your story for both you and your readers.

• You can help others: Sometimes, knowing you are not alone in a struggle is all someone needs to get through a tough time. It is basic phycology; there is safety in numbers.
• You will expand your courage: Opening yourself up to moments of vulnerability and sharing your story with others take courage and is surprisingly gratifying.
• It reminds you of the lesson learned and your strengths: There is no better way to embrace lessons learned than to speak about and share the process of learning them. It helps to preserve the valuable insight you gained living through your struggles and keeps it fresh in your mind.
• It keeps you grateful: Once you make it through a difficult time, feeling grateful for the present moment and for surviving the challenge can be a humbling practice that keeps everything in perspective.

Where do You Begin?

If you have a story to share, one that could help others, than you should take the next step by writing it down on paper to preserve it, and then consider getting it published. But how do you begin?

First, map out your story without getting muddled down with details outside the story. This usually requires outlining the basics of the story (or chapters) from beginning, middle and conclusion. You want a guide for yourself for how the story will flow.

Remember,your story needs to have a message – a clear takeaway for your readers. It has to have a purpose and make a point. It must include a descriptive beginning, which tells a bit about you, so that your readers can connect with you as a person. Then it should lead into the challenge or struggle you went through.

Share your emotions and thoughts as you weave through the timeline of the story. It should end with the lessons you learned, or how you survived, and what the story means to your life today.

Writing your story can be more challenging work than getting it published.

Once you have this all written in a Word Document or PDF file, it is time to get it published. Don’t worry. This part may actually be easier than pouring out your emotional life experiences as you wrote the story.

There are sites online that allow you to easily create and make your own, real, professionally printed books. With digital software, you design and publish the book yourself. A perfect example is Bookemon.com, which makes it incredibly easy and affordable to produce a book that looks like it came from a bookstore.

Simply, register for a free account with Bookemon and then pick a template for your book’s layout. Next, upload your content directly from PDF or Word files and then adjust and customize the pages by choosing a special font or clip art from the menu of options. Finally, you can upload and edit photos or drawings directly to the pages of your book.

Many of us will experience some kind of adversity in our lives and many of us will live through tough challenges. Sharing your story can be rewarding for you and help others by way of example. Getting started is simple, fun, and it costs you nothing to start creating your book

Creative people have many things in common. Most, if not all, at some point, deal with fear of failure in whatever their artistic, creative passion may be. It is so easy to question natural-born talent and creativity because it is something invisible within you, and cannot be proven by a certificate or diploma hanging on your wall.

As a creative person, you have this talent, but where are your credentials? If your creativity is that elusive, how do you know it will be there for you when you need it? Perhaps you worry that whatever makes those creative juices flow within you will suddenly dry up. Those doubts can cause you to hesitate, immobilizing you from taking the next creative step.

“What if I fail?” seems to be something that filters through every creative person’s mind. Think about it. In no other type of career do people experience this type of self-doubt supported by the outside world questioning their talent. Creativity is viewed by the general public as illusive and perhaps fleeting.

You must seek your creativity. Let go of fear and just do it.

How do we connect to our sometimes elusive creativity and harness it-without fear? According to a TED talk on creativity by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, suggests that if you are meant to create, don’t let anything stop you.

• Just do it. “Write, dance, or paint, whatever you are meant to be doing, just show up and do your job,” Gilbert says. You must move forward, do what you are meant to do, and trust that the creativity talent will join you in your work.
• Let go of your fear of judgment. Try addressing your fear in a step-by-step process. Approach your creative process in small manageable chunks, not thinking about the entire project as a whole. Make it fun. Turn fear into familiarity through a series of small successes. Learn to think of yourself and your talent with ongoing confidence. Realize that you are naturally creative and let those ideas fly.
• Release your inner child. As a child, letting our creative passion and talents flow came naturally. There was no worry about the end result. We were playing with some creative force that resided within us, and it felt wonderful. Tap into your inner child and focus only on the feeling with on you that makes you want to be creative. Let yourself play with your talent.
• Borrow some inspiration. All creative people get stuck at times. Getting inspired by the work of others can offer you the kick in your creative pants that you need. Whatever your craft, seek examples from those you admire. If you write, read the work of an author you love. If you draw, go to a gallery and soak up the talent. Most creative people take what they see in others work and change it to become their own. The talent of other people can be the seed of your creative growth.

Let your inner child be your creative guide.

Over the centuries, creativity has been thought to be fueled by finding a conducive environment in which to create, tapping into your personality traits, serendipity, and even spiritual muses. Finding a way to ignite your creativity really seems to be a matter of allowing yourself to try, without fear of failure, to play and let your ideas flow like they did as a child, and to get outside inspiration and transform what you see by making it your own creation.

Once you have finished your creative work, whether it is a novel, a memoir, a book of photographs, or a collection of illustrations, don’t worry about how you will preserve it. There are sites online that allow you to create and publish your own professionally printed books. A perfect example is Bookemon.com, which makes it incredibly easy and affordable to produce a bookstore-quality book and preserve your creations for others to enjoy.

If you are creative and have dreamed of preserving your work, there are many possibilities and types of books you can make online. Getting started is simple, fun, and it costs nothing to get started