Happy 10th Anniversary {and a map craft}

Today is our 10th wedding anniversary! My sweetie and I have seen, done, and experienced so much over the past ten years and I wanted his anniversary present to commemorate that in some way. When I saw this idea on Pinterest (see the inspiration here by minimoz) a few weeks ago I just knew it was the perfect gift because the Mister is a collector of maps.

{Our first home in Denver}

The hearts are cut from maps and represent places that have meaning to us: where we met, got engaged, got married, our honeymoon, our first home, where we had our baby, some places that we traveled, and where we adopted.

{Our honeymoon in Thailand...we danced under a full moon on the beach}

To make this, I used an old framed photo that someone had given us. It never really had a home and ended up in our dark hallway. I planned to spray paint the frame, but decided that I really liked the brown faux bamboo look for this.

And if there was ever a question about how often I dust the one thing hanging in my hallway, this should answer it... Yikes!

I removed the brown paper on the back of the frame and lifted the staples so I could remove the current photo.

I just used the white poster board that was in the frame as the base for my project. I used osnaberg fabric as the background, pulling it tight and gluing it to the back of the poster board. I had planned to use a spray adhesive but mine had mysteriously disappeared.

I then measured where I wanted each heart and taped some thread on so I could keep all of the hearts in line. (This was removed later, of course.)

After cutting out all of my hearts from maps I found on eBay or second hand stores, I printed up their descriptions, cut them and added grommets for decoration.

Using Tacky Glue (sparingly.), I put the hearts and descriptions onto the background fabric and weighed them down with something heavy. A cell phone box and pen holder, natch. Once they were all dry I tugged the thread out carefully.

Now the front looks so pretty and the back...well...this project is like a mullet: business in the front, crazy party in the back. But that's okay, no one will ever see that part. I just folded the staples back down to keep it in place...

...and covered the back with brown craft paper so it looked nice and neat. I knew this giant roll of paper would come in handy one day.

I glued it onto the frame, then trimmed it with an X-acto knife, trimming around the picture hook.

I'm so pleased with how it turned out and the Mister LOVED it (or he's really good at pretending, which still makes me happy).

This post is linked to: Freestyle Friday | Market Yourself Monday | Making the World Cuter Monday | Metamorphosis Monday | The DIY Showoff | Made by You Monday | The Kurtz Corner | Marvelously Messy | Make Something Monday | It's a Blog Party | Craft-O-Maniac | Amaze Me Monday | Motivated Monday | Motivate Me Monday | Running With Glitter | Mad Skills Party | Made With Love | Twice Owned Tuesday | Blue Cricket Design | Take a Look Tuesday | The Inspiration Board | A Bowl Full of Lemons | Nifty Thrifty Tuesday | Savvy Southern Style | Turquoise Lovin' Party | Whatever Goes Wednesday | Penny Pinching Party |