Map to my HeART

I’ve seen several of these floating around Pinterest lately and had to make one! Although our story isn’t as exciting as some (we met, married, and live in Sacramento) I thought it was such a unique way to tell your story!

I still have a padded headboard on my project list, but figured this would be a good way to fill the space above our bed for now and we’ll be able to move it above the headboard once I get that done.

I found the frame at the thrift store for $2 and primed and painted it white.

I printed out a heart in Microsoft Word so I could position it on the map exactly where I wanted it. I just made sure the heart was completely covering the area I wanted before I cut it out. I looked for an old map for awhile, but finally gave up the search. I ended up cutting up our Thomas Guide. I figure it's still usable since I'm only cutting the pages of the areas we know really well = )

Instead of a traditional mat, I used a piece of metallic scrapbook paper to coordinate with the colors on our gallery wall (posted about here). I ended up having to piece two together, but since it has such a small pattern you can't even tell! I cut out three pieces of white card stock as a backing for the maps.

To label each one with vinyl letters I used my Silhouette. I simply typed the letters in the program, formatted the size and font to fit my project, and cut the letters out on brown vinyl.

To transfer the letters I cut closely around the words and peel off all the outside vinyl.

Then, using masking tape so the letters stay together, I peeled the letters off and centered them under the map.

After pressing them down, I slowly peeled off the tape.

Put it all back together and here it is!

Easy and so cute!! I <3 it.