What to do with the Stubs?

Look at that thing. Isn't it great? I got the idea from Pinterest.

For most of my life I've loved ticket stubs. Early on it was mostly movie ticket stubs because I didn't go to many other events that required tickets until I was a teenager. Then, as a teen, I started liking other kinds of ticket stubs as well.

But my love of ticket stubs didn't extend much beyond keeping them in coat pockets or my wallet until they fell apart or got lost. I didn't have any kind of real collection of stubs, but I didn't want to throw them away either. They weren't sacred items, just pleasant reminders of entertainments past.

I thought about collecting them in a scrapbook or one of those photo albums with the sticky cardboard pages that have a plastic film you lift, stick things to the page, and then trap them with the film, but ultimately they weren't important enough for me to keep track of them long enough for me to organize them.

Then I saw something very similar to the photos above on Pinterest.

I liked this idea. It was a way to collect ticket stubs without the hassle of arranging them in a scrapbook. It was a way to haphazardly display my love cum collection. It appealed to my love of clutter.

I desperately wanted to make one!

Princess Melawesome and I drove to Michaels and I spent more money than I probably should have on a shadow box.

 

I cut a hole in the back.

Then, unlike the collection box I saw on Pinterest, I covered my poorly-cut hole with a piece of fabric onto which I ironed an iron-on image of my favorite kind of tickets: the "Admit One" tickets.

And thus my Ticket Stub Collection was born!

It's not just ticket stubs. I also put any interesting programs from shows or lectures, lobby cards, or anything else that has to do with entertainments past that tickle my fancy. But there are also plenty of ticket stubs: lots of movies, concerts, the State Fair, and even some from the Disneyland FASTPASS!

My ticket stubs still spend days, weeks, even a couple months in my pockets or wallet before I remember to add them to the Collection, but they usually find their way before they get lost.

If you love ticket stubs, I encourage you to make one of your own!

For more Ticket Stub fun check out Sir Mike's article on his Ticket Stub Collection!

My Ticket Stub Collection

One of my all time favorite films is High Fidelity.  This movie has had a far deeper impact on my life than should be humanly possible.  In it there is a line spoken by John Cusak referring to the vinyl records as “Fetishized possessions.” This is a concept I have always found fascinating to which I can relate.  I have many fetishized possessions, but the one that concerns me now is a collection of movie ticket stubs I have kept since as early as 1998. 

    

      I feel it is important to mention, that I hadn’t chosen it for this reason, but upon leafing through my ticket stub collection, I find that I have one for when I first saw High Fidelity in theaters.  The collection started as an extension of my OCD tenancies.   To this day, I have trouble throwing away receipts and the plastic name tags they stick to the top of DVDs.  Ticket stubs were just another one of those things, but at the same time, they were always different.  Even if it is only seeing a movie, a ticket stub is a physical reminder of a moment in history.  I can look at certain tickets in my collection and have them pull up a memory as vivid as if it had just happened yesterday.  Some of the best points in my life have been punctuated with movies; first dates, birthdays, points both high and low in my life, and the relationships I’ve kept with my friends over the years.

     I can hold my "House of 1000 Corpses"  stub and remember one of the last times I spent with my cousin and good friend before he moved out to Virginia.  Elsewhere on the Spectrum is the ticket to "Freddy got Fingered", which is a reminder of a strange outing with my then girlfriend and my grandmother, who for some reason wanted to see this over the top film.  I often go through my collection and reminisce. It also is an interesting visual guide to the changes made to tickets at the same theater over the years.  Some of these theaters I have been frequenting for at least 10 years.

     Recently Seth, friend and Ponder Couch mate, gave me an album designed specifically for ticket stubs.  It seems like it may have been designed with a larger ticket stub in mind, but I am slowly filling it up and I am enjoying the new way to display and protect my collection.  I may add pictures of the album as it fills out.