Framed World Map Poster

Wow! So time has really gotten away from me!! Summer, family vacations, visitors and now I suddenly realize I have neglected my blog duties...So here is a fun, easy and cheap idea to fill some wall space.

Supplies:

• Framed cork board
• World map poster same size or slightly larger than cork board
• Spray adhesive
• Map pins
• Spray paint

Alright, well first I took down the memory board I had made in my youngest son's room. He's now a toddler and I thought the fabric used was a little too baby-ish. I had intended to re-cover it and hang it once more, but then this idea came to me and I ran with it. 

I first removed the fabric and ribbon and was left with a plain wooden framed cork board (boring!). I then sprayed the frame portion (and quite a bit of the cork board as well) black. 

I found this great metallic silver and black world map poster on ebay for $6 and once it arrived I realized the cork board was slightly smaller than the poster, so I trimmed a little away from each edge of the poster, hoping we never travel to Antarctica, so it fit the cork area perfectly. I took out my spray adhesive and gave the cork a good coating. Once it was tacky enough I carefully smoothed the poster to the board.

I hung it in our playroom waiting until I was able to find a box of all red push pins...This was difficult since it seems every store in my area only stocked the multicolored ones and this was not the look I wanted. So I had to over pay and order then off amazon, but they arrived quickly and we were able to sit down as a family and go through all the states and countries we have visited in our travels. 

This is the finished project:

 I'm extremely happy with how it turned out and my eldest son loves adding a pin when we travel somewhere new. As a military family we've traveled a lot and it was nice to go through and talk about our memories and old friends and family at each location.

This project could be expanded to allow visitor's in your home to add pins or marking where family lives. Using flags instead of pins would be great for writing names, events or dates spent at specific locations.

Happy pinning!!