Hi! It's already Ramadhan!

To make a 'No Sleep after Sahur' plan a success, I try to do everything I can right after Subuh. This morning, I was making a Travel Keepsake, inspired by @nazuragulfira on instagram (also her tutorial here). She said it was a cheap way to keep her keepsake from traveling. Isn't that perfect for me? I have this tendency to not throwing things right away; maps, tickets, receipt, postcards I won't use, random cards, even long time ago, clothes label. Those are things I admit are unnecessary-but-memorable-though-I-don't-spend-time-admiring-them-but-it's-just-hard-to-throw-it-away.

This is also perfect because I'm currently throwing things out of my room. So, the memory remains and the rest are leaving (and my room is ready for more things (oh, cycle)).

Here are things I use to make mine :

The boards are polyfoam board (0.5 mm). I cut mine into a 20 x 20 square (though maybe it's too small). The polyfoam is a leftover material I had from architecture school. It's similar to styrofoam but thinner and sturdier. The texture is like instant cup noodle's containers.

If I didn't have a polyfoam, I might make a square board from cardboard. I think anything will do, as long as it has a flat surface and doesn't bend easily.

The glue is PVC glue because it works fine with polyfoam though it takes a longer time to dry (also, this glue doesn't work on polyfoam or styrofoam) Aside from that, I also use paper tape, this is the type that usually doesn't damage the paper when it is removed from the paper.

This is my travel keepsake : maps, bus tickets, other tickets, and boarding pass. I have some cards but apparently, my board is too small so I can't include them at the end. I also plan to include some coins, but I forgot.

Additional material is a clear plastic. I usually use the plastic to cover my books, but apparently I didn't have any at the time. The plastic cover can be add anytime, but it's important to keep the display clean and spill-resistant.

What I did is pretty simple, it barely takes 1 hour to finish 2 boards. First, I laid the maps (I use it as the background) on the board and roughly deciding which parts I would include. In my case, I have my Singapore Flyer tickets, so I including the location of Singapore Flyer on the map.

Then, I throw the rest of the tickets and boarding pass and securing their place with a paper tape.

I cut the map slightly bigger than the board so I can fold it to the back of the board. This method hides the edge of the board, especially when it is damaged because of a dull cutter. The downside of this method is that it's a bit hard to work on the corner. Of course I can always cut some parts beforehand, but this time I didn't.

After folding the maps to the back of the paper, I secure it with paper tapes. This method also has its benefit : I can always tear the tape and move the map (plus the other things) to a bigger board if I want a bigger display in the future.

For my second board, I cut the map in the exact size of the board and securing it right away to the board using PVC glue. Either way is fine.

The last thing is to secure the tickets to the map. I glued them all with PVC glue and removing the paper tape. Mine was pretty plain, right? I want to add some cut-out letters into it, maybe later.

And voila; a pretty travel keepsake plus a wall decoration in an instant. Now I can throw the remaining tickets and maps at ease :)