Too many lines and boxes!

What I don't like about National Park Passport pages, and what I plan to do about it.

I do not like the lines on the National Park Passport Explorer Edition pages. (Whew! There, I said it!)

I especially loathe the boxes that are intended to house the national park stickers (which they call “stamps'“, kinda confusing…). Don’t get me wrong, I love a well placed sticker! But I want the freedom to choose where and when I place them. Further, the boxes are sized to fit a specific type of sticker. I want to be able to use any sticker(s) I please, and not be LITERALLY boxed in by predetermined lines.

I’m also not a fan of the headings at the top of the pages. They’re not as bad as the boxes, but the same issue applies: They take up space that I would rather be utilizing. I’ve got too many examples of stickers or stamps intersecting with the header, and it’s simply not necessary. (At least, not necessary for me. I’m certain there must be folks who like it just as it is.)

This is a great example of what I’m talking about. In order to fit an extra stamp, I needed to overlap the heading line. Further, I used a sticker that was smaller than the box, and if just looks off.

I run into this issue often, and it always bothers me. Why don’t we have the option to buy blank pages? I want blank passport pages! I’m not sure exactly when this went from the “it would be cool if this existed” stage to the “I should make that” stage, but it’s been in full blown “I’m going to do this” mode since February. And now, I suppose we’re in the next stage, “I’m doing this.”

Today I took an extended lunch break. I hopped on a bus, hopped off, navigated past a sketchy situation in which I feared for my safety (a story for another time…), took a longer than necessary walk due to the aforementioned sketchy situation, and ended up at my destination.

The destination was Minuteman Press. The mission: Create blank pages so I can stamp my passport without the lines! Some might call it coincidence, others might call it a sign that this is destined to work out, but the employee who helped me was also named Dylan! (Although, he informed me, he spells his name Dillon.)

We had a great chat about what I wanted, and Dillon let me know that they can make it happen. I took a couple samples home, and did a simple test.

Took this photo while waiting for the bus. Three samples- Which one will it be?!

I used rubber stamps to stamp both an official national park passport page, as well as my paper samples, and the winner was immediately obvious. The “65# Uncoated Cover” paper is awesome. It takes the stamp well, and is thick enough that the stamps don’t show through too much on the other side.

This is the back of the paper, placed on an opaque surface. The arrows point to where the image lightly shows through on both the sample paper (left) and passport page (right).

Again, this is the back of the paper, this time held up to a sunny window. The sample paper (left) feels slightly less transparent, but similar to, the passport page (right).

Just before sitting down to write this, I called up Dillon and let him know which paper I had decided on. He promised he’ll send me a quote. So now, I suppose I wait!