Where the Heart is

This is the first of several posts I’m doing with a lovely group of ladies about crafting with stuff you have at home. It’s a “Stash Craft Challenge”! Yay! I’ve got lots of stashes of so much craft stuff! So follow along with us and I’ll post everyone’s links at the bottom so you can check them out too!

Map Craft

This craft is a map I made for my son when he went off to university. I wanted to give him something that was significant and would remind him of home. I also wanted to let him know that we were all here rooting for him and that we loved him so much. Home is where the heart is and he would always be welcome back here.

It is the perfect craft for this challenge because I made it using items I had around my house. A box frame I no longer used, stickers, pennies representing each year everyone in the family was born, and of course the glue gun.

To be honest, I had to search high and low for a penny from 1970 and after putting the word out, a friend with a huge Rummoli obsession finally found one for me.

Step 1. I started by printing off a map with the route from our house to his new rental. Then I made it fit into the opening of the mat that came with the frame. I didn’t want this to be huge, just little so this frame I already had from Ikea was perfect.

Step 2. I taped the map into position with a couple of pieces of tape until I had it exactly where I wanted it then I taped it down really well.

I also had to leave room for the pennies. Deciding where to put them was time consuming. I would have liked for them to be centred perfectly but it worked out better the way I used them.

Step 3. The pennies were heavy so I used the hot glue gun to make sure they stayed on. I had originally thought of using foam tabs from my scrapbooking kits but they fell off too easily.

Step 4. The map doesn’t show our exact location but for the purposes of this craft it was close enough. I stuck down the heart next.

Step 5. I then put all the bits together and this is how it looks finished in the frame. (Although I did have to open it up again to dust off the mat and wipe the inside of the glass properly.)