Week One: Map Art

Since having children (we have two - ages 4 and 21 months), we've made some changes to the layout of our home.  What was once the office/den, is now our dining room, and the former dining room now houses all of the toys.  The walls in our "new" dining room have been bare for far too long, so I wanted to find something to hang or display on the wall behind the table.  Our dining room also doubles sort of the entry to the house.  You walk in the front door and directly to your right is our dining room.  So I figured it should look nice, right?  Right. 

To show you what I mean, here's the front door

(don't you love the toys and balloons in the picture?  Get used to it. I have kids and clutter and they show up in my pictures.)

 So here's the empty wall.  See?  Nice and empty.  Needs some perking up, don't you think?  To the right of the picture is the front door.  And all the lovely clutter.  Like I said, get used to it. 

Not knowing what I'd like to put on the wall, I needed to get some ideas.  So I headed to one of my favorite places: Pinterest.  I stumbled across this website which describes how to turn an ordinary map into wall art.  I just happened to have a vintage map collecting dust in my closet.  It belonged to my grandfather and used to hang above his desk.  

Here's the map. It's been folded, rolled, ripped and patched up many times - it has seen better days.  But I love it and it reminds me of my grandpa.  So it's perfect. 

According to the directions from the original website I found on Pinterest, I needed to find some canvases.  I was in luck, because Michael's was having a sale on value packs of canvases - score!  Once the kids were in bed, I started working on the layout.  I wasn't able to get them to cover the map perfectly, so I had to sacrifice a bit of Greenland, Brazil, and the Atlantic Ocean in the name of art.  

Now here is where I screwed up.  I had planned on spacing out the pieces - creating small gaps in between each one.  But when I made the layout, I forgot to factor in the gaps.  So if you plan on doing something similar to this project, and you want gaps between the canvases, make sure to do that from the beginning. 

Alright, so I figured out my layout:

Then I traced around each piece with a pencil, and very carefully cut them out.  Using a foam paint brush and my new favorite product, Mod Podge, I glued each piece of map to it's corresponding canvas. 

When dry, I again pulled out the Mod Podge and painted over each piece to create a clear glaze (2 coats).  Done!  That was the easy part.  The tricky part was getting it on the wall.  

You see, I don't have the best track record for hanging pictures on straight or evenly spaced.  Even with a leveler, it never seems to turn out the way I saw it in my head...without at least a few extra holes in the wall.  So I needed a fool-proof way to get my map art on the wall.  

So here's what I did: 
    1.  I used a big roll of paper, laid the canvases down how I'd like the them to appear on the wall, and traced around the outside edge.  Then I cut along the line so I'd have a piece of paper that's the same size as the completed map art.  I would use this paper as a template to figure out my positioning on the wall. 

     2.  Because there weren't any hooks on the canvases to hang them on the walls, I decided to use push pins, and they worked really well.  I simply pushed the push pins into the wall and hung the edge of the backing of the canvas on the push pins 

push pins in the wall 

     3.  Next I needed to figure out where on the wall to put the push pins.  I taped two small nails on the backs each map piece.  

     4.  When each map piece had two nails a piece, I lined the canvases back on the template I had cut out earlier.  When I was sure of the placements, I pushed the nails in to the paper.

     5.  When I removed the canvases from the template, I was able to see exactly where I should push the push pins into the wall.

     6.  I removed all the nails from the canvases, then took my template with the new holes in it, and lined it up on the wall where I wanted the map pieces to go.  I used some masking tape to temporarily place it on the wall.  
     7.  Using the holes as guides, I pushed a push pin into the holes and into the wall. When I finished making all the holes in the wall, I took the paper back down, and filled in each hole with a push pin. 
     8.  This was the best part - hanging up each piece.  I simply lined them up against the correct pins, and viola!  A finished product!

 

my not-so-bare dining room wall!

And there you have it!  All in all, it took me a full week, working evenings and a few nap times to get it finished.  It only cost about $45 - not to shabby!  I'm happy with how it turned out, but I'm more proud of finally being able to display my grandfather's map and to have a reminder of him every day. 

On to the next!!