Maps! A fun DIY

I love maps! Like love love them! I have no idea how I came about this relatively newfound love but they fascinate me and I feel like just looking at them opens doors. I've been looking at some watercolor style maps on Zulily for months. But the smallest version is $30, and then it still needs a frame. And while that isn't a great deal of money, it was more than I wanted to pay. Two weeks ago I walked into Walmart and practically squealed! They had the word version of the watercolor maps for $5 as posters! Yay yay yay!! I scooped up both the US and world version and headed home to figure out how on earth to make a frame. After some Googling, I found a great site, that I can no longer find, and used it as a general guide. I measured the poster and then headed for Sutherlands (it's kinda like Lowe's). I bought three pieces of 8 foot lattice that is about 1.75 inches wide. It's a thinner wood, only 1/4 inch thick, which was perfect, as everything else seemed too big and bulky. I had the store cut them down about a quarter inch shorter than the poster (I suggest doing at least 3/4 inch smaller to avoid some extra steps).

We assembled the wood into frames on our patio and glued them together with wood glue. 

Toddlers can help too, ya know! We left the frames outside for a few hours so the glue would set. 

Nice feet honey! We used some wood joiners but I don't think they did much. 

Once they were dry I painted them a lovely and bright blue color. Again I left them outside for a few hours to get good and dry. It was about this time I realized that my poster and frame were just too close in size, I'd need something else to attach it. I bought 4 pieces of poster board, and used my dot runner from my scrapbook supplies to joint the pieces together so that they fit completely behind the frame, but were big enough to attach it to the frame. Then I used my dot runner to attach the poster to the poster board. 

Now all that's left is to attach it to the frame. I used packing tape all the way around the poster to secure it to the frame, as the staples in the staple gun were too long. I have a long shelf in my living room where I wanted to put them so I didn't use any hooks on the back or anything. A picture frame hanger would do the trick if you wanted to hang it. I slid these up on the shelf and have been admiring their beauty ever since. 

I'm thrilled with how these turned out. It was an inexpensive project that has offered lots of visual interest. The frames are light weight and it's so easy to change up the color. What have you been up to lately to change up your home décor?

xx

Jamie