Create A Travel Collage

After I unpacked from our last trip I realized that I had kept a lot of tickets and other travel ephemera in a pouch, kind of unintentionally. We don't scrapbook so I was thinking of just taking a few photos of the stuff and throwing it in the recycling bin. But, we had a free afternoon so out came the scissors and glue. Luke, Eve and I cut up packaging, tour magazines, gift bags and gathered all the tickets we could find. I told them what a collage was and how you need to organize the largest items on the page first, overlapping with smallest items on top. Space planning is a bit beyond Eve's understanding at this age so she worked on sorting and then happily cut and pasted away with the scraps. Luke said it was the funnest craft he's done in a long time and was very proud of the result. He wrote a little memory on the back of each page too. I think we'll have to make this travel collage thing a regular way to wrap up our big adventures together!

Travel Collage Tips

• Use card stock as your base for the collage.
• Double sided tape dispensers are great for tacking down pieces while space planning.
• If you have to use glue, go with glue sticks to avoid wrinkling and damage from too wet liquid glue.
• Use whatever you can like packaging, business cards, food wrappers, and of course ticket stubs.
• DO NOT laminate ticket stubs. Most of them are printed on heat activated/sensitive paper and will turn black when exposed to high temperatures. I learned this the hard way!
• Again, the thickness of many overlapped pieces of paper make traditional lamination a BAD IDEA.
• Instead purchase a self laminating adhesive sleeve to keep your collage preserved for the long run.
• Alternatively, use clear portfolio sleeves and seal up the top with clear packing tape.
• Hole punch pages and keep them in a travel binder so your kids can continue their collection on their next adventure!
• Have kids write a memory or two on the back of the collage in their own handwriting or drawing and date it.