Making Artwork: My Travel Map Craft Project

My husband and I love a good adventure. Especially one that takes us away to a new town that we get to explore together, even if it's just for a day or two.

A couple months ago, we got a big fold-out map in the mail, which my husband promptly pinned to our wall as a way to track all the cities we've been to as a married couple. As any good wife would be, I was thrilled with the sentimental idea.

The only problem? The freebie map was a bit of an eyesore (scroll down to the "before" photo). So I decided to do what any good crafter would: Dream up with a more aesthetic solution using my own two hands and a whole lotta resourcefulness. (You can also check out the bird-inspired artwork I created for our living room, too.)

Rummaging through my recent reorganizing spree, I came up with enough supplies that the only thing I had to purchase for the craft was a roll of corkboard, which you can order for cheap here. Everything else was pulled from my crafting supplies, reinvented from old, thrifted artwork or even from my make-up cabinet, as you'll see...

A Tutorial: How I Created My Travel Corkboard Map
I've loved owls for awhile (what 20-something girl hasn't?), but I don't foresee incorporating this creepy owl painting anytime in the future. I'd put it in a pile to donate to the thrift store (of course, I'd originally purchased it at a thrift store), but I figured it could be useful in this project of mine, and at least if I ruined it, it wasn't a loss.

I taped the edges and then, using a template I found online, sketched the U.S. template onto the picture. I picked a dusty robin's egg blue I already had in my craft closet and painted the background, forgoing the area in the middle that would soon be covered. (And as for my paintbrush, I ended up using some old make-up brushes that I was going to throw out. I just washed them and went to work!)

Using the same template from tracing the map onto the artwork, I cut a map from a roll of corkboard. Then, I glued it onto the painting (which I then held into place with some of my empty glass jar collection, and a bottle of my favorite Aleene's craft glue).

Meanwhile, I printed out some tags for marking the cities we've been to and some banners (inspired by my blog design!) to title the piece.

Once everything was dried, I used some straight pins (which I snipped to size with wire cutters) to keep the markers and title in place.

Alongside the travel map, I hung another collection of travel-related prints I already had on-hand that harken back to other cities meaningful to our relationship (Cincinnati, where we met, and Grand Rapids, where we lived our first month as a married couple). I used another piece of thrifted artwork from my stash to frame them, and voila...

P.S. If you are new to this blog, thank you so much for stopping by! You can feel free to browse all my other posts about my journey toward a lifestyle of simplicity and DIY, as well as some of the ways my husband and I are learning to save money. I also write about my faith, my marriage and everything in between, which you can explore in the archives.

Plus, if you like this craft tutorial, click here to pin it to Pinterest. You can also follow me on Pinterest here.

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My Latest Endeavor: Watercolor Painting

As a child, I knew I shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but when there were so many to pick through, and only a handful of minutes, you had to have something to go by. For me, it was all about the pictures, and I always seemed to gravitate toward the ones with the pages daubed with ethereal watercolor brush strokes. There's was something about the way these pictures were able to transform the ordinary into something magical. Those gauzy edges and the way the colors merged together like kindred spirits always had a hold on me.

Recently, that endearment has been reawakened, and I've found myself marveling over the medium once more. I started pulling out my little palette that I got at a dollar store a long time ago and painted some little vignettes: an apple, a pear, a little hillside. All reminiscent of the kid-friendly nature that this craft holds.

When I was young and first reading these books festooned with watercolor pictures, I did fancy myself an artist. I thought for awhile that that was what I was going to be when I grew up. But soon, that talent plateaued out and went no further.

Until now. I'd like to show time that it has not won out, just yet.

I just bought a new, slightly more grown-up watercolor kit and hope to make it a habit of painting one thing a week. I have no expectations of this hobby ending up in a gallery or on etsy. But I'd like to be able to pour my creativity out onto paper in a way that words cannot, translate them into pictures. I'd like to be able to paint a picture and pin it on my walls, rather than depend on Target to supply all my decor. I'd like to be able to try my hand at something that's always enamored me, and see where it leads.

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Creating the Artwork for Our Living Room

I've mentioned before my struggle when it comes to finding art--I hate the mass-manufactured kind you find in the stores. Usually I find it to be too dark, too boring, too "themed" for me to justify spending $20 or $40 on. Which means I've often had to resort to making my own.

My answer, time and time again, has been designing my own images and having them printed, poster-sized, which you can do anywhere from Walgreens to Target. (By the way, make sure to check out the comments for some other good places that people have recommended to get your pictures printed at!)

When it came time to set up our living room, I decided to go this route again and began the elusive search for an image to fill the frame, which I already had on hand. I ended up discovering this rights-free, high-res print of the bird nest on one of my favorite stock photo sites, Stock.XCHNG. I spiffed it up in my photo editing software (making the eggs a bit more teal, to match our color scheme) and then sent it off to be printed.

I had originally found the frame at a thrift store (surprised?), meaning it came without glass or a mat. (It also was a gaudy copper color which I immediately spray painted white.) I couldn't find a mat that large at any of the craft stores so I decided to DIY my own, using some sturdy cardboard and green fabric I already had lying around. I pieced together the cardboard lengths and then drew the fabric taut around and fastened in the back with my handy new staple gun. I stapled them all together to make a big rectangle and then taped the poster to the back of it all. (Let's just say that there's no doubt about the DIY-ness of this project when you see the back!)

It's not perfect but I like the tactile element that the fabric brings to the piece. And the oversized nest is such a fitting image hanging over our couch, a testament that this place is our little nest, humble beginnings all around!

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Our Kitchen Nook

Last week I showed a little peek into our kitchen with the pictures of our makeshift art gallery on the wall above the sink. I figured it was time to unveil a bit more from this room and share our cozy little kitchen nook!  (Also, because I got a new tablecloth that I wanted to show off!)

Without a dining room, we set up our round table in this little corner of the kitchen (catty-corner from the little art gallery). This has worked out really well for us because there's gobs of sunshine that streams in through these windows and so it makes a really comfy place to take some work or do a little sudoku puzzle while I'm waiting on water to boil or something like that. Plus, now that it's springtime, it's so awesome to be able to look out the window and watch the squirrel build her nest or pay attention to the different kinds of birds that frequent the neighborhood, from cardinals to even a hawk. (Watch out, baby squirrels!)

Anyway, I picked up this a-d-o-r-a-b-l-e avian-spangled tablecloth recently, which ties in with the mustard-yellow of our chairs perfectly.

Then, while cleaning out some folders, I came across this printed envelope that I'd picked up during my days at HOW magazine from the lettering artist and illustrator Elvis Swift (see up-close photo below). I'd held onto it because I loved the beautiful calligraphy, but then when I actually took time to read it, I realized the passage was actually Ecclesiastes 3:11 ("He has made everything beautiful in its time..."). My favorite verse! So I decided to frame it, which now means that this verse decorates three places throughout our home now: Here, here, and here!

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