I resisted getting a pinterest account for years and I had a good reason, too. I spend an inordinate amount of time wasting my life on the internet already and I knew that Pinterest was like a great, sucking hole that would drag me down into the depths of the DIY internet for the rest of my life.

But then…this.

I die.

A map family? Using maps from where everyone was born? Symbolically representing the fact that we’re all a family, regardless of where we come from? Game over, Pinterest. You win.

I’ve literally had two years to plan the cute things that would fill my house when we finally had a child come home. Two years. Instead of getting a pinterest account, I would just email myself links so I have 452 links to amazing DIY projects that are buried in the other 8,492 emails in my inbox because I can’t bring myself to delete anything…ever.

So, I finally got a pinterest. But, I promise you that I don’t spend very much time on it. I probably don’t use it like I’m supposed to, since I never browse anyone else’s board. I’m pretty sure that doing that would make me want all the things and to do all the crafts.

Obviously, trying to squeeze two years of crafty planning into about three weeks of “Hey, you have a kid and he’s coming soon” is ridiculous. So I’ve had to pick and choose. Also, he’s 9 and a boy so I’ve had to amend my idea of what a cute kid’s bedroom would look like.

PS- My vision doesn’t include anything Michael Jackson related.

Anyway, I really wanted to make this map family thing because it’s cute and I love the underlying message that it sends. I finished it yesterday and posted a pic on facebook yesterday and it got quite a few likes and comments so I wanted to do a quick DIY (a super easy one).

Welderbeth Makes a Map Family

Supplies:

– A frame (My mom gave me one of those double glass, invisible frames but the picture above also has a shadowbox frame (and the people are elevated a bit))

– Maps from everyone’s hometown (I literally spent a few hours on The University of Texas’s Map Collection website browsing for maps that jived with each other. They literally have thousands of maps- historical, current, topograhical, bird’s eye view.)

-Cardstock

– A template for paper dolls (I also spent at least an hour finding a set that I liked. Why are paper dolls so weird now? The female paper dolls look like Barbie now, which I found disappointing. I ended up using this paper doll family.)

The Method:

1. After you’ve located the maps that you want to use, you’ll want to make sure that you print them big enough. I zoomed in until I could see the place name, took a screen shot, and dropped the picture into Publisher so that I could make sure it was the size that I wanted. I located all of the place names as close to the hearts of the people as possible, so make sure the place name is near the middle of the page.

2. Run to the store to get more ink for your printer because it always runs out in the middle of a project. Always. It’s the rules.

3.  Print out your paper doll template and cut them out. Please use scissors.

4.  Trace the paper doll over the maps. Make sure that the paper doll is covering the place name you want to be displayed.

4. Cut them out. Using scissors. Preferably sharp ones.

5. Drink some lemonade.

6. I also added “The Wise Family” on a mat from some of the leftover maps. I would recommend using your own last name.

7. Because our heads kept falling off without any adhesive, I used some scrapbooking adhesive to stick our family to the back piece of glass before putting it in the frame. If you are going for more of a Halloween feel, by all means, don’t use adhesive and let your family be headless.

8. I’m sure you could figure out how to do this on your own. You go, girl!

I’m pretty pleased with the result. Not too bad for my first Pinterest attempt!

Pinterest Win.

(Here’s a Pinterest board that I’ve created for some things that we’ve done for our boy to make him feel like a part of the family.)