a life well-lived: free vintage tag & ticket printables

I remember sitting in business class on the way to visit relatives in London when I was only fifteen. My dad had frequent flyer mileage tickets and I felt like big stuff sitting in the “important” section flying solo. This was despite my propensity to get lost going to the bathroom and extreme anxiety over which gates to follow and how to retrieve my luggage. I was young and completely naive adventurous and nothing could spoil that.

The man sitting beside me had one of those Popeye-style tattoos that I remember eyeing out of the side of my peripheral vision, on his forearm. It resembled a deflated balloon. For eight whole hours in between magazines and movies, I wondered what it once was, but never had the guts to ask. {The questions that haunt you…} After a brief discussion, he made an observation that I was well-traveled for such a young age.

I secretly beamed on the inside with pride, and vowed to myself that I would be extremely well traveled by the time I was adult, and everyone would be impressed with my travelage. Mileage makes me sound old and dirty so I went with travelage. I’m legit like that.

Over the years, real life set in. I went to school, pursued my degree, and found my heart longing to stay close to home. I met my best friend, got hitched… and it’s like we woke up one morning and here we are. 1 dog. 1 mortgage. And 1 terrifying fact that will stand forever: three dependent offspring. I spend the majority of my days wondering how on earth I got here, and the remaining 1/3 over analyzing what I’m doing to my children that will require therapy later in life. Some days I’m covered in laundry and others it’s school papers and paint. I’m 6 years away from “mid-life” and I’m starting to realize exactly what they mean by “crisis”.

Growing up. It’s scary stuff. And usually, not how we pictured it.

Fast forward to now, and I’ve been loving the idea of vintage tickets and tags. The idea of beautiful stubs and remnants of memories and treasures in old design. I haven’t been collecting them since the 1920’s, nor do I have a grandmother who did. And if I owned some, I wanted them to mean something. So I had an idea.

I would create some of my own.

At first glance, they’re just a little collection of pretty remnants in fun colors for display. But if you look really closely…

You’ll see our birthdays.

The year we met.

You’ll see the day that Jamin proposed.

Our wedding day. Trips. Stats on our children when they were born. Our first apartment. Even Chloe (our dog’s) birthday.

Special little memories that only we can recall.

Recreated as art on display for our family.

I may not be so well-traveled anymore. I say there’s still plenty of time for that, though maybe I never will be. I’ve realized that even in the imperfect piles of laundry and days we struggle through school with the kids… wiping little bums and cleaning paint out of my hair… We have these memories and this life and our own path…

And it’s absolutely beautiful.

I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t trade it for all the trips in the world.

Okay. Some days, I reheally need one of those little huts in Tahiti on stilts in the ocean with a god book. But it’s beautiful anyway.

Maybe it’s not a life well-traveled. But definitely a life well-lived.

Here’s what I did to make these:

We had a piece of oak plywood cut at our local home improvement store (No cutting required beyond the paper, guys – they’ll do it for free, so you’ve totally got this!) to 3 x 3.

I gave it about three coats with this fabulous Cabot finish in Cinnamon.

While that was drying, I printed the tickets on card stock that I wanted to use. {All of these will print on an 8 x 10 sheet}

Then I broke out the stamps + hole punch to choose special dates, initials and everything in between I wanted on each little ticket. {The kids already had this Melissa and Doug set, (perfect for school!) I scored these off Amazon because they included numbers, and I had some like this, here.} Stamps are always a wise crafting investment… I’ve never scrapbooked a day in my life but I could open a store with all the supplies. ;}

Then, I used a fingernail file to round the edges of the paper, distress the tops, and do “creases” in the corners and center by folding and filing each one. {This is the fun part, and doesn’t take too long – I did it at night while we watched the teli}

When they were “aged” and ready to mount, they looked like this. Little treasures discovered in pockets after the trip was over.

So I played around with them until I came up with the right little arrangement.

To mount each one on the board, I tried a variety of glues. The wood glue made it bubble up and it was too heavy, and the spray mount didn’t want to stick all the way. The hot glue was bad for the paper, and would leave “spider webs” everywhere. (You don’t want these puppies falling once they’re in between the glass) So the perfect solution was a bit of Tombo glue  (It’s like a roll on, double sided tape.) Get the applicator with the first link, and your refills here.  {A little pricey but absolutely worth it.} If not, I’d go with a combo of spray adhesive and a little wood glue on the corners.

We had some plexi-glass cut to a 3 x 3 at our local glass store, (It depends on your store, but ours was 40 dollars – well worth it for the huge frame it created and extra polished look in the end) and secured it with four brass screws in each corner. (Take the plastic off the bottom part first, and leave the plastic on the top while placing your screws.) Then we added two more screws on two sides at the halfway point (because of the twine placed beneath wanting to bow up).

When we were finished, we removed the plastic, and Tada! Meaningful art, full of memories.

If you guys want them, you can get them here! Because you rock our faces off. Yeah, I still say that.

{ vintage document / transportation / student tickets / return ticket / return ticket luggage tags / red striped baggage tag / punchy tickets / punchy ticket 2 / one two three / number tickets solid tickets / more small tickets solid-words / little tickets / large stripe 7-0 / large stripe 1-6 / grand punchy / colorful document / apt and other tickets / 8-10 no raincheck / 3-5 no raincheck / 1-2 no raincheck }

The possibilities with these are kind of endless. You certainly don’t have to use them like we have! They would be fun in a smaller series, in a memory book, as gift tags, cards…. I’ll stop now, but can’t wait to show you guys where we’ll be using it.

{* These files were created in Adobe Illustrator. If you’re interested in learning how, we recommend Emily’s class, here!}

Let us know if you use them and how – we’d love to hear! Have an inspired day!