finished map Edit

For a long as I can remember Derika and I have been talking about how we would love to have a world map that we could put pins in to mark where we have traveled.   Why haven’t we made this dream a realty!? Here are some of the hold ups…I have yet to find a map that I really love, but I don’t know how hard I have actually been looking.  Also getting things framed can be a bit pricey, and the maps that I have found have all been huge (of course they are huge, it is a map of the WORLD)!  I also do not want glass on the framed map, because I want to stick pins into it.  So this is how this idea of making my own world map art came about.  I found a really great and simple map at Barnes and Nobles so I bought 2, because I knew that I would mess up 🙂 and started to brainstorm.  Derika was in Brazil for the week, so I knew that I could comfortably take over our small NYC apartment with my craftiness.  Usually when I start a project I have this grand idea of how I want it to turn out, but then once I am in the craft store I get distracted by all of the glitter and sparkles and my project begins to morph. After 3 trips to Michael’s Crafts and a few evenings watching documentaries, drinking wine and trying not to get spray glue on my wood floors this is what I came up with.

Map Supplies

Supplies

I got all excited and wanted to get started right away, but when I got home I realized that I would need to flatten the cork and the maps for a least a day or two.  Fail!  I laid the map and cork out on my living room floor and let some books hang out on top of them for about 24 hours.

After everything was flat I cut the cork board to fit my canvases and glued the cork to the canvas with the E-6000 glue.  It was not sticking right away and according to the directions it needed to sit overnight for best results.  So back under the books these canvases went. You don’t have to add the cork to the canvas, but I was not sure how well the pins would stay if I was just sticking them into the canvas.  The cork also made my canvases about 1 inch thick. This is where the 2 maps came in handy.

Cork on Canvases

Cork on Canvases

After the canvas and cork was dry, I was ready to begin cutting.  The first cut I made was the piece that included the US, because that is where we have traveled the most.  I wanted to make sure that I was not slicing through it.  This map is really great for this project,  because the grid lines on it make it easy for cutting. After I cut my first piece.  I turned that piece over, covered it with spray adhesive and smoothed the map over the cork canvas evenly. Wrap the sides like a present, using spray adhesive to seal them. You will have a decent amount of excess paper on the backside, we will get to that later. I flipped my recently mounted canvas-back over to see where I would need to begin my second cut.  This is where the second map comes into play. Since I did not want to lose too much of my map, I went to the second map and made my cut for the middle canvas and followed the same instructions on mounting.  I cut my third piece of the map from the first map.  This ended up working our perfectly and I lost very little of the map.

This is what the back of my canvas looked like after I finished mounting them.

Unfinished - Back of Map

Unfinished – Back of Map

I let these maps hang out like this under some books for a few hours to seal the adhesive. After the adhesive was sealed I went back and tidied up the back of the maps, by securing and removing some of the excess paper.

Finished Back of Maps

Finished Back of Maps

Once the map was completely finished we inserted small push pins that I got from a girl on Etsy.  I got 2 multi-color packs and 2 yellow packs. I wanted to color coordinate where we have lived and were we have traveled together. These push pins worked great and were perfect because they are small enough to work in the areas where we needed to put a lot of pins. Below is the finished product hung on the wall with some of the push pins in it.

World Map Art

Happy Crafting!

4 thoughts on “World Map Art

  1. Anita

    Those look great. I bought three canvases months ago and haven’t found a map I like either (I’ll be going to Barnes & Noble) so the project has been on hold. I like the different size for the middle one so I think I’ll be going to Michaels as well. I was wondering how the pins would stay in the canvas and never thought about the cork so thank you…I will be adding that to my shopping list…better get my Michael’s coupons together! Do you think Modge Podge would work on this project?

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