This is a pretty ambiguous statement, but simply put, my boyfriend and I want to see the world! (I guess a lot people do though 😉 We have visited what seems like so many places, but looking at our map, we still have the rest of the world to explore. A couple ways we are documenting our travels are these shadow boxes and this pin map. In this post, I will walk you through how I made this map display, and I will be putting up a separate post for the shadow boxes, so stay tuned for that!
To make the map, I purchased a 3′ X 4′ canvas and a laminated map. (I chose a laminated map because a paper map would warp and wrinkle when covered in glue.) To secure the map to the canvas, I placed glue all over the back of the laminated map, making sure I covered all of the corners and edges so they wouldn’t pop up over time. Once the glue dried and the map was secure, I used a wide paintbrush and spread Mod Podge over the face of the map and the exposed edges of the canvas. This gave the map a textured, brush stroke feel. Let the Mod Podge dry, then added another layer. I did this 3 times to give the map a very pronounced texture. The Mod Podge will be white when you first apply it, but don’t worry, it dries clear!
To give the pins something sturdy to stick into, I took a piece of foam core board and placed it behind the canvas frame. This way, when I put pins through the canvas, they have something solid to hold them in place! I show three different color pins here. The blue pins represent places that I have been, the red represent places Zack has been, and the purple, of course, signifies places that we have visited together. This is such a fun way to document the places we have been, but unfortunately it shows us how much of the world we have yet to see. We look forward to all of the adventures the coming years have in store for us. We can’t wait to spend the rest of our lives trying to see everything the world has to offer.
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