Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Decorative {Documenting Your Travels} Map

This is one of my favorite "decorative documentation" projects in our house. This project can be done with a World Map, Country Map, or State Map to fit your personal travel journeys!

We are fortunate and blessed to be living in an area where European travel is easy and quite affordable. If you look over to my sidebar under "Our Destinations", you'll see we've done quite a bit of traveling in the last 2 years. Traveling around Europe when you live in Europe is near the equivalent of simply exploring your "home-state" in the U.S. We're talking ... Paris is only a 4-hour drive, Rome is a $30 plane ticket, the Netherlands is a 4-hour drive, Austria is 4-hours away ... you get my drift. So as I said, most of our destinations are just a simple drive or a cheap plane ticket away.

We wanted a simple yet decorative way to document our travels as a family. This Travel Map is by no means my original idea ... in fact, as a pilot, my husband's flying unit usually has one of these hanging in their building ... just not as "pretty"! At a semi-recent spouses' meeting, the host had a decorative version in her home and as I wiped the drool off my chin, I said ... "this is it"! That night I hopped on Amazon and found a 36" x 40" antique-style, laminated world map and ordered it immediately. Shortly after it arrived we took it to get framed and adhered to foam poster board (a good DIY project) and then found the perfect spot for it in our home. I would have loved to do this as a full-blown DIY project but we have a hard time finding the right supplies here.

Now, I have to admit ... the hubby was not really on board with this little project until he pushed-in the first map tack ... then he was quite excited to step back and see the beauty of the project! This is a great conversation piece when you have guests over and also great for the kids .. and to be honest, Al and I have spent a lot of time just looking and reminiscing about the places we've been has a family.

Decorative {Documenting Your Travels} Map

Supplies

World Map or U.S. Map
Map Tacks

Foam Board
Custom Frame

We used 1/16th map tacks to mark the cities we've lived in and the cities we've explored as a family. We decided not to mark the places we've traveled individually; just our family travel.

We didn't realize how much time we've spent on the East coast! It's time to venture "out West" when we move back to the states.

Taking a step back to get an idea of size and scale.

Thanks to my awesome husband for just "trusting me on this one"!

I'm linking this to ...

Show and Tell GreenMake it Yours @ My Backyard Eden Weekend Bloggy Reading


13 comments:

  1. My sister just bought a six by nine foot map for just this purpose. I LOVE how yours turned out and am sending her the link. Nice job!

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  2. I love that idea ... what a neat piece of family history!

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  3. OK, I'm serious. Chris and I JUST talked about this not two days ago and I was thinking about putting something like this together. I thought about doing separately colored tacks for each of us, since Chris has been to so many places that we haven't. Got the chore boards today. So excited.

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  4. Great job Jaime! My family had something similar to this when I was a kid.(something awesome about Michigan families I guess ;) It was an outline map of the US and we filled in each state we visited. I'm thinking I might need to do this now too! Maybe get different colored pins for Adam and the rest of us. =)

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  5. That's so cool! I've always wanted to have a map with pins in it...although I'd have to make up the locations I've been too since I'd only have...three? LOL Maybe I could put a pin in all the places I've "been to" in my books! Ha!

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  6. I love this idea. I shared it on my blog to do in my sons room. Perfect! thanks so much.
    4growingboys.blogspot.com

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  7. i love this! i keep storing this idea away-yours looks great. and sooo jealous of your travels-how wonderful!

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  8. What a great idea! I love when artwork means something too!

    Also, I have a great Dove chocolate giveaway going on right now and would love if stopped by and entered: http://eyespydiy.blogspot.com/2011/02/dove-chocolate-discoveries-giveaway.html

    ~Katie @ Eye Spy DIY

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  9. LOVE this idea!!! I've traveled to Europe twice, but there are so many more spots I'd like to see. A $30 ticket to Rome would be a dream come true!! ;)

    Thank you so much for joining my Weekend Bloggy Reading party. :) Hope you'll visit Serenity Now again soon. :)

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  10. I rarely leave Canada (and then only to the U.S.), but what a fun idea. Maybe we'll do a domestic version.

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  11. Oh, that is cool! :D Mine would be slightly on the boring side, though, too...if it was just the family, not including before kids were born, it would basically be Australia, NZ, and Hawaii. And one trip to CA. lol.

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  12. That is the coolest thing ever! Found your blog through your comment on Delightful Order's kitchen command center, came over to see yours and am a new follower. Can't wait to get to know you!

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