Skip to main content

Pinterest Challenge!


So, one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love, does a Pinterest Challenge where they urge people to stop pinning and start actually doing what they've been pinning!  I hopped on board with my own Pinterest Challenge and actually completed a DIY project!  

I started with my Pinterest inspiration image:


From HERE

I'm sure you've seen similar "state art" images floating around the web.  I thought they were cute and decided to make my own version of one for my parents as a Christmas gift.  I wanted to include the four places we have lived as a family: Michigan, Tennessee, Mexico, and Dubai.  Hopefully this will give you an easy, step-by-step tutorial of how to do one for yourself!

Step 1: Search google for geographically correct state/country outline images.  Once I got these I printed them out and made sure they were about the same size on the paper (I didn't care if the sizes were geographically correct in comparison to each other)

Step 2: Copy these images onto cardstock in REFLECTION mode, meaning copy them backwards (this avoids seeing the lines after you imperfectly cut them out).  Many copiers have this setting.  I used the copiers at FedEx Office:


Step 3: Cut them out.  This was easily the worst part of the project.  For the record, Michigan is NOT an easy state to cut out!  This is how I felt while doing it:


After cutting them out (my hands/fingers were SORE), they looked like this:


Step 4: Cut out the background of the frame.  I used simple posterboard for this (yay for inexpensive projects!):

Step 5: Place the states/countries on the background.  Be careful when spacing them because you don't want the frame to cover them and you want to leave room for the lettering at the bottom:


Step 6: Place heart stickers on the specific cities you lived.  This can obviously be done before Step 5:

Step 7: Glue them down.  Obviously make sure that's where you REALLY want them!
Step 8: Add lettering at the bottom if you want.  I used 3D foam sticky letters from Michaels.  It gave the lettering a nice pop and made the letters not look flat and boring:


I just eyeballed the lettering at the bottom.  I didn't want it to look TOO perfect (umm...check):


Anyway, that's the final product!  I think it turned out really cute and my parents loved it.  All of the supplies including the frame and copying came out to less than $40.  If you can find a super inexpensive frame it would be even cheaper.  Hope this was helpful!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Birth Story--Riley James Faulk

 A warning in advance--this is really long and detailed, so if you don't want to read a detailed birth story (with pictures), then stop now!  This was an important record for me to make and I didn't want to spare any details. :) Technically the story of my labor begins on Riley’s due date: July 24, 2013.   Because I have to go back to school as a teacher very soon (my first meeting is August 14), I was desperate to see if I could use some “natural” methods to get the labor going.   So, on Wednesday, July 24 around ten in the morning I took about 1.5 ounces of castor oil, which is known to get labor kick started occasionally by basically freaking out your bowels so you have the runs—lovely.   I waited for a few hours but nothing happened at all.   Bummer.   My mother and sister came to Salt Lake and we celebrated Pioneer Day by going to temple square and having lunch at the Lion House.   After lunch I started to have some horrible pains in m...
5 comments
Read more

So I Was in a Show...

When I got back from Dubai, I was B-O-R-E-D.  I was looking for work (since my time at Ecker Hill Middle School ended when the normal teacher came back from sick leave) and nothing was coming up.  I was a stay at home wife. Not cool. So, I decided to audition for a musical-- Lucky Stiff .  It was my first audition in the Salt Lake Valley.  I doubted I would get in the first show I auditioned for since I knew no one in this part of Utah and I assumed it was probably even more competitive than in Provo. Regardless, I went for it...and got the lead female role!  I was shocked, not only that I had got cast as a lead but also that I got cast as the ingenue!  I tried to think back to all the parts I had previously played and I could not think of one role that would be considered an ingenue role.  I'm always the villain or the quirky weird character, which has always been fine because those are great roles to play.  For example: My senior year i...
3 comments
Read more

We Bought a Couch...

Well, we've officially made the move from a basement apartment in Midvale to a rented condo on Capitol Hill in Salt Lake City....and we're loving it! The only problem is that our new apartment is pretty unfurnished.  We never really liked our old brown sectional, although it was our first "big" purchase as a married couple so I guess it had some sentimental value.  Regardless, we decided to try and sell it to people who came through to look at our apartment when it was up for rent.  Luckily, someone bought it!  This was very exciting to us, but we quickly realized when we moved in to our new place that we now had no where to sit and watch movies or snuggle or just relax after work.  Well, it's been almost 3 weeks and we are still only watching movies in bed on a tiny TV. The GOOD news is, we ordered a couch!  It should be here in about 4 weeks.  Now that we have picked out a couch, we still need to get: 1. Rug 2. Coffee Table 3. Side tables 4...
3 comments
Read more