As I’ve shared with you before, my family loves to travel. (You can read some of my road tripping tips, why we stopped giving traditional Christmas gifts to our kids and how we stay sane while multi-generational traveling to see some of our past trips.) We just adore it so much that we truly enjoy seeing reminders of our experiences on a daily basis. While deciding how to change up a blank wall in my kitchen recently, I realized that a family travel map would be the perfect accessory. Not only did I create my own for fraction of the cost of what can be found online, but it serves as a daily reminder that there is still so much of the world that we hope to see and explore!
With a few simple supplies and a couple hours of elbow grease, I created my very own personalized travel map for $40.
Supplies:
Large poster map (I used this one…great size and price!)
cork board or cork tiles
duct tape
spray adhesive (I like this one)
(2) 8′ 1×3 pine (depending on the size of map, this could vary)
wood glue
After deciding that my large wall needed to have a pretty big map to anchor it, I lucked into finding a cheap option on Amazon. But with the large size map came large sized price tags on pre-made cork boards. So I chose to go the more economical route and purchased cork tiles instead, knowing that I could combine them to create one big board. I grabbed the nearest roll of duct tape and got to work.
I taped the tiles together, making sure that it was staying nice and square as I went along. I had to cut a couple of the pieces down to fit behind the map perfectly. Then I sprayed both the map and the cork tiles with a spray adhesive and applied the map right on top of the cork.
My dad and I built a super simple frame for the map, just cutting each board to length with opposing 45* angles. We decided to glue the frame together since it wouldn’t be supporting any weight. I let the glue dry then added a quick coat of my favorite stain (Minwax Bombay Mahogany…I seriously use it on everything).
Using 3m Command Strips, I attached the cork backed map to the wall, then did the exact same thing with the frame overlapping the map. All that was left was adding cute push pins to all the places that we have traveled to.
Now we look at the map every day. We talk about future trips and point out places that we hope to visit one day.
It’s also been a great conversation starter when any company visits.
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