I found this online a few weeks ago and decided it was the perfect quote to sum up why Liz and I are best friends.
As many of you know (if you've been reading my blog that is) Liz was my "randomly selected" roommate freshman year, and my current partner in crime for the last four.
This weekend she came to DeKalb to cure me of my statistics midterm blues (Wednesday was rough this week) and to help me find all of the fun DeKalb stuff to do.
I'm going to be honest....DeKalb can be a bit of a drag in the winter. Summertime yields nice hiking paths and outdoor shopping downtown, but winter is a different story. Luckily, Liz and I have been finding fun things to do together since we moved into the North C building at the beginning of our GVSU education.
Both Liz and I had a few things to accomplish in the near future. Liz needed to acquire clothing that was acceptable for wearing in Africa when she joins the Peace Corps. in May, and I needed to find something to do with all of the ticket stubs I had laying around in boxes that my mom delivered from the house when she moved.
So our first stop was taking some advice from Macklemore and going to Goodwill.
Goodwill is one of the best places to find light flowing skirts that hang past the knee (because honestly, where else can you even buy those right now? the long peasant skirt is a bit of a dead trend). We found so much more however...while looking through t-shirts to match to the suitable peace corps attire, I found a Free People shirt that looked as though the tags had recently been removed. Sometime you really can find some great treasures in the most unlikely places.
After Goodwill hunting it was time to tackle the issue of the ticket stubs. As I posted about last time, I have a really hard time parting with items that represented fun things I've done in the past. Although I have all the pictures from Italy, I also have the menu from the restaurant we visited almost every day, the bus tickets we bought, the airline itinerary, and museum tickets. I couldn't just throw them out! What if I want to go back someday and I can't remember the name of the guy that ran the family owned pizza place on Borgo Pio that we went to almost every day? (it's Luigi, by the way). At the same time, they couldn't very well sit around cluttering my living space (which is extremely limited). Thus, it was time to consult pintrest for a useful way to use these paper memoirs.
Tada!!!!
from the craft kitchen of Lillian Asiala, I give you
ticket stub coasters!
Pretty cool, right?
And they were relatively easy to make. After taking an exactoknife to our walking tour maps, tickets, and restaurant menus, we collaged the pieces together, sealing the final pattern with Mod Podge over a couple of 11 cent bathroom wall tiles. The "recipe" called for a piece of plastic over the final product, however the plastic sheet wasn't binding with the glue, and the result was a "protective" cover that is very easily peeled off. Googling a fix for this problem directed us to ditching the plastic cover idea and using polyethylene spray which is both expensive and extremely smelly. Thus, for now our coasters aren't entirely safe for use. I'll have to wait until spring, when I can turn this into a back deck project and let them dry in the sun for a little while. They do, however, look very cool.
The coaster on the right is mine. On the top left corner is the spot on the map where one could find Saint Peter's Basilica (our apartment was only about three blocks from here). Directly next to the map on the top right side is my ticket to the Vatican Museum where we saw the Sistine Chapel. Below is the top of the menu from La Romanella. This was a family owned pizza place on our street that we visited the first night we walked around the city. We came back several times over the course of our trip -- the owner was very nice to us and the pizza was amazing.
The white block on my coaster is my attempt at collaging my airline itinerary to the tile. Unfortunately you have to look very hard now to see the schedule, but even after mod podge it's still there. Detroit to Amsterdam, Amsterdam to Rome (May 15th 2009). Rome to Amsterdam , Amsterdam to Detroit (May 25, 2009).
Liz's coaster features a map of the colosseum and the surrounding ancient ruins. On the bottom you can see the maroon and black stripes of the Roman bus tickets, the zoo ticket, and our pass to enter the "time elevator" which was an extremely touristy attraction that taught us all about the history of Rome in a 60 minute movie complete with moving seats (think the intro dinosaur DNA ride from the movie Jurassic Park). Thinking about it still makes us laugh.
For good measure I included an action shot.
I am so excited to make more of these! By the time I'm finished (with Italy, England, and Germany) I should have a whole set! And besides being meaningful relics of past adventures and excellent conversation starters...
They just look awesome.
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