Love *Heart* Map Frame

Hello there!  Today, I'm sharing something that would make a great gift (or something for yourself if you'd like).  I had actually been planning for several months to do this for a specific couple that I know (who shall remain nameless so I don't spoil the surprise) and well, Christmas kind of snuck up on me, so I guess a Christmas gift it is!

I got the idea from Pinterest (shocker).  There were three different pins (seen below with links to their original websites) that all had the same general idea, so I used all three and came up with my own.   It's similar to the "Home Is Where The Heart Is" map frame I made for a housewarming gift last year.

Kayla Danelle's Map Art

Minimoz's Love Map

Everything Fab's Repurposing Your Maps

Here's a run-down of what I did...
(Sorry for some of the crap-tastic nighttime photos.  As you may remember, I'm a night owl and do most of my projects at night).

Supplies needed:
*  Picture frame(s)
*  Maps
*  Red embroidery thread
*  Needle
*  Stamps
*  Black ink

1)  After determining the three cities of where they "met, married and live", I Googled them and printed out each place (cardstock would be ideal, but I had printed mine on regular paper before deciding to stitch on them).  I was able to get exact locations for two of the cities, but the other I just used a map of the general area of the city.  It really didn't need to be exact, though.

2)  Using my felt heart from this previous project as a guide, I determined where I wanted the heart shape to go and then poked holes in the paper around the heart so that I could stitch the embroidery thread easily.

3)  Using red embroidery thread, I back-stitched all the way around the heart.

4)  After I finished stitching, I trimmed the maps to fit inside the matting of the frame and taped them to the paper that came inside the frame.  In case you were wondering, I bought my frame at Ikea - it's the Ribba frame.

5)  Before putting the maps inside the frames, I stamped on the matte.  First, I stamped on a scratch piece of paper to make sure I got the spacing how I liked.  Then I just held up the paper to the matte and used it as my guide for stamping on the actual matte.

6)  Once I was finished stamping, I put everything back in the frame and wa-la!

This is really a sweet gift and quite easy to make as well.  You could probably even whip one up still before Christmas!

originally posted at http://adventuresindiy1759.blogspot.com/

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