Less than $30 GIANT Map Art!

I've been loving the trend of maps in the home lately! So Rob and I decided to find ourselves our own giant map art. But we ran into a wall with the prices. Yikes!

Awesome Ikea map... that is ridiculously over priced at $150. Eventually, we had to buy our own poster map and mount it ourselves. 

I can't remember who did this (I found it again via pinterest) but this is what originally sparked the idea for us to use map pins in our giant map to remember where in the world we've been too (and Carmen). 

After a month or two of gathering supplies, it's finally done!! In the end it cost us less than $30, and it's SO easy to replicate! So I'm going to tell you how we did it!

Source List:

--The map came from Barnes and Noble. They have a section of map posters... if you dig through them and look at each one, the un-laminated ones are ~$7. They have the "antique" map and the normal one. We got the antique looking one since the colors were softer. We got ours for $4 though since I found a 30% off coupon. Always check retailmenot.com! 

-- The molding came from Lowes. It's the simple foam core baseboards. They come in 8 ft. sections for about $4.50. You'll need two 8ft sections. 

-- The paint is chalkboard paint. It was the only black paint I had on hand! I ended up really liking the matte look it gave though. If you don't have black paint, you could pick up one of those $1 bottles of craft paint. 

-- Green Guard Home foam insulation sheet-- from Lowes. It's in the duct work and insulation aisles. We got the 1in. thickness. It comes in MASSIVE sheets for just $13, you'll have to cut it in the store to get it home. It's too big for cars and too light to put in the back of your truck. 

-- Hot glue, glue gun, and picture hanging kit. 

It came to around $26 for us. 

Tutorial: 

Step 1: Lay the map on the foam board. Cut around the map, leaving an inch on the outside.

 Attach the map to the foam insulation board with thumb tacks in the very tippy top edges. You'll cover these up with the molding and use that inch of foam to hot glue the molding to. 

Step 2: Molding time. We used mitre box and hand saw. They are like $10 at Walmart. Measure the molding to wherever on the map you want. We left the sun trim showing since Rob liked it. Cut all corners at a 45 degree angle and they'll fit together just fine. 

Step 3: Paint the trim. Once dry, hot glue the corners together. It's like caulking... with hot glue. Once dry, slide hot glue along underneath the molding too. Let dry again.

It's okay if it's slightly wonky.

Step 4: Flip it over carefully (might take 2 people). And hot glue the foam to the molding like so:

Step 5: Insert picture hanging hooks. The little tacks push easily into the foam. I used hot glue to cement the picture holders in place too.

Step 6: Hang and enjoy!

 The map pins can be found at OfficeMax by the way. It took us awhile to find some at a decent price. These were $3.50 for 50 pins in red, white, and black. We used the black to show where Rob has been in the world, the white for where I've been (practically no where), and red for where we've been together.

So far we've been to three continents together: Europe, North America, and Africa (Tunisia).

I need to travel now!!