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Monday 6 July 2020

Vintage Map Wall Art

Hello.  Hope you are doing well.

You may have noticed I have a thing for maps as decoration. I love vintage maps (although pretty soon, won't all paper maps be vintage?) like this one...


This map was sold as wrapping paper, but it's far too nice to just wrap gifts in!

I thought about sticking it to canvas, or even framing it, but I thought a metal map would be great on the wall - it could act as a memo board with magnets, and we could always stick some of our fridge magnets on it. We make a point of buying a fridge magnet from everywhere we visit - a tiny, inexpensive memento but once we can start travelling again, we will soon run out of fridge space!

I bought the sheet metal from Etsy - I was a little disappointed as it arrived scratched and very dirty, as well as rust stained.  On the positive side, at least it was the right size, and I figured everything else was fixable!  I made a hole in each corner - it is quite heavy so I will screw this to the wall.  I measured then marked the holes, and created a dint - ready for drilling.


I cleaned it thoroughly and even sanded it.  Not the best of ideas to sand it on the grass.  A single blade of grass can make a real mess under a sander!!


Then it was really just a matter of gluing the map to the metal. I made sure it was straight, and used fridge magnets to help me line up the first edge.


It wasn't quite perfect but it was ok - I did work hard to eliminate air bubbles, but a few persistent small ones remained.  And I managed to create a tiny tear in the north Pacific (below), taking off a fridge magnet 🙄 but I think I can probably cover that up with a magnet!








I cut holes through the paper to match the holes in the metal


Finally, I painted some more PVA on the front of the map to protect it. I'm really happy with it! I love that it has time zones on too!



The final PVA coating brought out what must be rust spots from the metal (I thought I had got rid of them!!) but I am OK with that - I think they fit in well with the vintage theme. An oil-based sealant on the metal would have avoided this! I am looking forward to putting this up in our new home!









1 comment:

  1. Brilliant! I've just discovered your blog yesterday, have read almost every post since the start, have gleaned enormous amounts of information, inspiration, and enthusiam, and will be re-reading all of them for so time to come. Thank you!!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for your comment - every single one is appreciated and I do read them all.