KT Made It: Split Canvas US Map

Two posts in one day! Woo hoo! Helps when you have a whole afternoon/evening free of homework before starting the next rotation :)

The inspiration for this project comes from Project Nursery where I found an awesome post about a map of the United States made in fabric - super cute! Lucky for me I had lots of left over scrap book paper from my upgraded coffee table, modge podge and a pack of 8x11" art boards just waiting for a little inspiration.

What you need:
Four 8x11" art boards or canvases
Map of the U.S. for a template (see below)
Scrapbook paper of your choice, enough to get some variety
Scissors
Modge podge and applicator

First, I needed a template of the U.S. to cut and trace each State onto my patterned paper. I found just what I needed on Wikipedia. I copied the image into a Microsoft word document set on landscape so that I could enlarge the image, and I also extended the borders of the document to 0.25" all the way around to make it that much bigger. I enlarged the image and it turned out to be 10" long and 6" wide. I then copied the enlarged map onto 3 other blank documents, intending to split the image into four equal sections, one of each going onto an art canvas so that the map would be split. Next, I went about cropping each map into one of the four sections. Based on the original 6x10" dimensions, each section was 3x5" then enlarged to equal sizes so that the sections would fit together like a puzzle.

I printed 2 copies of each map - one was cut out and glued to the art board directly and the second was used as a template for each of the States.

Here are my art boards.

These are the maps that I cut out and glued to the boards using modge podge. This was the foundation to which I glued each of the individual States. Originally, I was cutting out each piece and trying to piece them together like a puzzle without the original map as a background but that proved to be insanely frustrating.

After cutting out the mainland of the first map and gluing each to one of the boards, I started cutting out each individual State, traced the template onto a piece of scrapbook paper, and then glued the paper to the correct spot on the map. I did not want to use my pen on the patterned side of the paper, so I flipped the paper over and traced the template on the "wrong" side. NOTE - if you try this, you also have to flip the template over, because otherwise you are only tracing the shape of the correct orientation of the piece on the backside of the scapbook paper.

Here you can see me building my map. Again, I used modge podge to attach my pieces to the background map and then I glossed over the pieces with a layer of modge podge for finish as well.

And here is more progress...

After I finished the entire map, I realized that I did not have a way to hang it! So, after rummaging through my arts & crafts box I found 1cm wide orange ribbon which turned out to be perfect for making little hooks by gluing the edges to corners of the board with my glue gun. I used 3" long pieces and made two hooks on each art board, one on each of the top edges about 0.5" from the end that I could hang on a thumb tack.

And here is my map, hanging above my couch!

Very tedious to make, but another awesome project complete!