Train Tickets!

Sometimes I'm surprised. I didn't expect to like the end result quite so much, and I didn't expect to enjoy the process, but I sure did! Sometimes the process is just the means to the end. I ALWAYS love the end, I don't always enjoy the process.

I ended up with a frame that would take 112 tickets, and I had 106. So I left some gaps :)
Here's what I did.
I pulled out a frame I got at a yard sale in the summer time. I got 3 large frames from this sale, for .25 cents each. This one had a gap in two corners, so I hammered it back best I could. Still a small gap remained, but I called it character.

There is this inner frame made from some sort of velvet like material. The previous owners must have had dogs or cats, cause there was hair stuck to the velvet. (like I said, it's just been in a closet. --one where I don't keep clothes, scraps of carpet, a fishing pole, and DH's golf clubs.)

So I got out the packing tape. I have 2 cats and am constantly using tape to remove cat hair. (yellow rubber gloves too. That's a magic trick I love.)

It cleaned up real good!

Then I found a piece of ply wood I had that was almost the perfect size. I just had to saw off 1.5" from one side. Then I stained it walnut (this is the before photo). I also gave the old frame a little coat of walnut stain to liven it up.

Then I figured out how many tickets wide and high I could go, and how many I had. Realizing I was 6 tickets short of a solid frame, I strategically placed the gaps.

I also put the tickets in number order. Not that that will mean anything, but I thought it would be kinda fun. Sometimes there are 3 or 4 sequential tickets when I went on the train with friends. So I put them in order.

Then I attached the back to the frame, and used two dots of hot glue on the back of each ticket to fix it into place. It went together so easy and tidy. A very satisfying project :D

TFL!