The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.

In my own haste to get ready for a first-time trip to New York City, I forgot to add our brand-new feature to the blog. Before you read the rest of this post, take a gander over to the top of the left column to see our new Creative Concept corner. Sometimes, you just need a small word or idea to send you into a great creative mindset. This month the theme is: travel. So many of us have recently traveled or are about to go on our summer vacations and there are a lot of ways crafts can make your trips easier or more fun.

This very theme inspired my craft for today. It was also inspired by an odd book called The Big-A** Book of Crafts by Mark Montano, pages 142-143. The author says to laminate a color copy of a map, cut it to the desired size, punch a hole in the corner, thread a key ring through it, write your info on the other side.

It sounds easy, but I think I've made it even easier (and less sharp around the edges).

I used these great easy-to-use Photo Laminating sheets from 3M.

I printed off a map of where we spent our recent vacation from Yahoo. I wrote my info on the reverse side and even added the quote I put in the title of this post. I glued the map and info back to back and slipped it into one of these sheets. Easy! I then cut a small slit in the top and threaded an unused hair elastic through the slit to attach it to my luggage. I even added a small ribbon for good measure and to cover the metalic connector on the elastic.

The finished product:

-C