Crafty Welder Chick: Planes, Trains and....... BIRTHDAY'S!

My good friends birthday is in a few weeks (if you know him please do not ruin the surprise) and he loves fishing, prospecting, camping, riding his quad, Selena (his beautiful, wonderful, crafty girlfriend) and TRAINS!!!! Earlier this year we hiked to The "Impossible" Goat Canyon Trestle, it was a adventure we will never forget.

(You can see the trestle in the background)

One of the most amazing things I have ever seen and worth every scratch and bruise. Here's a link if you want to know more about it. It was a 14 hour hike from beginning to end (so not for the faint of heart).

http://www.roadtripamerica.com/places/deanza.htm

During our adventure I found out that my good Friend has a secret love for trains, well a secret from me at least! hahaa! So this year when deciding on what would be a great birthday gift for him, I remembered that in our area we have the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum (the trains from this station used to go over the trestle we hiked to, i think). So after some contemplating I decided to get him tickets to the museum and a 60 minute ride on one of the trains. I did a quick web search and found a Groupon for 2 tickets for the price of one (if you haven't checked out Groupon you must!!! they have the best deals). Which means I HAD to buy 2 Groupon's so we could join our friend and the beautiful Selena on this fun little adventure.

So Groupon's are not pretty, just a coupon you print from an email. I just couldn't give his a ugly piece of paper for his birthday! so I made some vintage looking train tickets in adobe illustrator cs3. It was really fun looking around online for ideas and then putting it all together. I am very happy with the way they turned out. Still want to take some brown stamp ink and make them look kinda dirty and old. OK, OK, I know you want to see some pictures...here you go........