Leaves of Nathia – A travel journal

What makes travel journals so important is the fact that we can’t possibly remember all the interesting details of our beautiful journey. Jotting the details down makes us remember and cherish those moments forever. By now, you probably have a fair idea of my love for journals. Here is a link to my Europe travel journal in case you missed it out. I have also shared my Genealogy Journal on this blog on this link. Following is a video link to this journal.

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Inspired by the green town Nathia Gali and its beautiful trees, I decided to make a travel journal on leaves. I had no diary in hand and thought it’s the perfect opportunity to write and draw on them. It was a difficult project as leaves wither. To prevent that, I had to press them first (leaving them in a newspaper under carpet), then apply white glue (alternative of Mod Podge) on both sides. After they were dry, I had to protect them in plastic covers and bound them in the shape of a book. I was very happy with the end result and thought it was an exciting project to have my holiday documented in ‘Leaves of Nathia’.

While packing I didn’t take my note book/journal as I never planned to keep a diary for this trip. Once we were there, our cousin started working on her travel journal. I was happy to write and draw in her journal when she asked me to.

Thats when I thought, oh this place and company is lovely so why don’t I start making a journal too so I can remember the details of this trip later. The only problem was that I didn’t have any paper to write on.

I was sitting outside in the beautiful garden with spellbinding plants all around me when suddenly it stuck me. Why don’t i write on leaves just like primitive times we hear about. So I collected a few gorgeous ones and started writing and drawing on them. 

 

Initially there were questions on how I would preserve the leaves and that my journal will get ruined. However I was very confident about it as I thought I would coat the leaves with white glue (an alternative of Mod Podge) so they have a matt covering on them and can be preserved.

I got so excited about this project that I started collecting different leaves, flowers, tickets, wrappers for it. My boss recently had a baby and we had a light day at work so I quickly completed doodling on leaves and sticking pictures on them. The leaves could not be laminated so I decided to use plastic sheets and got them bound. Now I will be sharing pictures of the pages of this journal.

Even though it was very challenging, I absolutely loved working on this leaf project and I can’t wait to paint on a leaf for my latest wall hanging project for our room. I have found my latest love for leaves now. I can’t believe how I was oblivious of their beauty for so long. Is it just me or do you guys also suddenly get hyper excited about random things in life? I hope you liked this safarnama. I forgot to write in urdu in this journal and hopefully i will do so in one of my future journals. Lots of love.