Have Map, Will Mark Where Traveled

On our Facebook Page earlier this week we shared an HGTV video about creating a travel map, well that got us inspired to finally put together our own travel map in the library, and we love it.

Our family loves a good road trip!  We have logged more hours and miles in the car than I care to imagine.  We've traveled from Ft. Lauderdale, FL all the way to San Deigo, CA, thankfully not in one trip!  So we wanted to chart our adventures across the USA to remember where we have been, and look for new places to go.  We received this map as a gift a few months ago, and here's how we put it together.

We went to the local hardware store, and picked up these fence pickets in 5 foot lengths and 2 different sized pickets for interest.

Cut them down to 4 feet

Test fit!  We wanted to add some interest and change it up a bit by staggering the wood, and not making it perfectly even.

Next we used wood glue and brad nails to keep all the pickets together on the back, 

but for the top bracket we cut this piece on a 45 degree angle using our table saw so we could hang it on the wall without using screws or nails on the face of our board.  We attached half of it on the board,

And the other half went on the wall in studs and it will just be hung by the angle without the need for nails or screws, but before we bring it in we must do some distressing, and my favorite tool to distress is...

Of coarse you knew it was the blow torch, instant color, wood grain, and contrast.  Perfect!

Its up!!  We have some extra space on the right side over there because that's where our build-in shelves will be going eventually!

Our first pin, home!

Now we need to create a legend.  Went to the silhouette to create our legend with the font of our choice, and cut it out of vinyl.

Using transfer paper we get our words on the board.

And wallah, there they are!

Each with a corresponding colored pin.

Finally we add the string.

We wanted to make sure that each adventure stood out, so we painted our string with the corresponding colored pin so we could tell between a road trip and a flight.

Last piece was to add our string to the board, and we are done.  Easy and simple way to chart your adventures, and discover new places to go.  Now I'm in the mood to travel somewhere!!