Love Map Art

My husband and I have been together for 12 years. And although HE says we no longer have to celebrate our "dating" anniversary....I say we DO. Its at the end of February so I have been trying to come up with something personal but not pricey as my gift to him. Then I remembered this pin!

 http://minimozblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/love-map-tutorial.html

This is so perfect for us :) We met in college (Salisbury University) and then moved back home to Baltimore County and got married there. Now we live in PA. So three hearts from three different place and times in our relationship.

I checked out the tutorial (click on link above) and it pretty simple. However, I was NOT going to search around forever for a frame to redo. So I bought one at Target for $24.99. It's a nice frame. Basic black with 2 glass panes you put pictures in between. Simple, clean, done.

Now I needed maps to cut out. I thought about printing maps off the internet but they wouldn't have that "map" feel so I needed real maps. I looked up the prices for maps on Amazon.com not as cheap as I wanted. Then I remembered the roadside welcome center 5 minutes from my house! Free Maps! Tons and Tons of them. This was the PA Welcome Center but they also had MD roadmaps and gave me 2 of each state for free! Score :)

Next I had to decide how to do the heart shape. They needed to be uniform and I didn't want to free hand them like the tutorial. So I used a large heart cookie cutter as my template. So easy. I actually got a set of 4 heart shaped cookie cutters on clearance for a $1 at Walmart after Valentines day. The large one worked perfectly. Traced and cut them out..took 5 minutes.

Then I chose a simple font and printed out the captions on regular printer paper. Used a glue dot to secure each heart and cut them to the same size squares. Another glue dot to stick them to the glass pane and I was done! 

Here is the finished product :)

before it was hung

up on the wall :)

Happy Pinning!

Tiffany