Passport Shadowbox ~ Inexpensive Art – The Pinterest Challenge, Fall Edition!

It’s that time again for Bower Power & Young House Love’s Pinterest Challenge! So I finally got off my butt and put together a sweet little piece of artwork that I’ve been meaning to do for MONTHS.

As I discussed on Wednesday’s post, Bill and I have a bit of a passion for travel, especially road trips, and have made it our life’s goal to visit EVERY national park there is and collect stamps for them in our passport as we go along.

One particular national park holds a special place in both our hearts as our families vacationed there when we were kids – Cape Hatteras National Seashore on the great Outer Banks of North Carolina. It’s a beautiful stretch of pristine beaches that are completely protected – they’ll NEVER have a house on them. There are several villages and towns that break up the stretches of dunes, but there’s something really fantastic about hitting highway 12 and having the ocean lapping on one side, and the sound gleaming right on the other side of the road. It’s a magical place.

OBX Highway 12 @ BandBBuildALife.com — Cruising down highway 12

Besides being known as the ‘Diamond Shoals‘ and being THE place to study Pirate lore, the Outer Banks have also been the star of several Nicholas Sparks novels, most notably Nights in Rodanthe (turned into a movie starring Richard Gere and Diane Lane!).

Nights In Rodanthe house @ BandBBuildALife.com — It’s the Nights In Rodanthe house! Located near Mirlo Beach. You can actually rent it out too!

So far Bill and I have made it down for the past two summers, and plan to make the trip every summer we can afford it. Mayyybe even for a big party involving a poofy white dress someday. *sigh*

Given that we have solid plans to return many many times, and that I actually purchased the full expansion version of the passport for Bill for our anniversary last year, using our original passport stamps wouldn’t be bad as we’ll be getting lots more. After I saw Urban Jane’s West Elm knock off using ticket stubs, (I’ve pinned it here) I thought framing our first trip’s stamps (along with a ticket stub to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse) like she outlined would be a meaningful piece of artwork that would also be a great conversation piece.

I used one of those graduation tassel shadowbox frames that you NEVER really use. I removed the original matting and used scrapbook paper and foam stickers to set the pages off the back a bit.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore Stamps Art @ BandBBuildALife.com — At this angle you can see that the pages and ticket stub are set up from the blue background a bit.

The project took me a total of 10 minutes to put together while watching an episode of Parks and Rec with Bill. Easy peasy! And because I already had the old frame collecting dust in a closet, as well as the pages and the scrapbook materials, it also ended up being a zero-dollar project. Can’t beat that!

close-up of the stamps @ BandBBuildALife.com — A little closer here to show the details and the date of our first OBX trip together. Ohhh the memories. 🙂

As you can tell by the stamps, there are SEVERAL points of interest along the Outer Banks that you can get a stamp at, including every lighthouse. Our favorite is the obvious spiral painted Cape Hatteras Light.