Their Way / My Way: Wall Art

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My sister and her husband (augh!) just moved in together and wanted some artwork for their walls, so I thought making something for them would be the perfect gift.  I had been toying with something using the phrase "home is wherever I'm with you," and my friend mentioned she had found some map art on Pinterest so I swiped her idea ;)

First I went to a used book store around the corner from my apartment and found a map of Lake County, where we grew up and my sister currently lives.  I decoupaged the map to a canvas and let it dry completely.  While it was drying, I laid out the words the way I wanted in InDesign and printed them out.  Then I lightly taped the words to the map and traced over them with a mechanical pencil, pressing down hard so that the pencil made an indentation on the map.  Using good lighting, I traced and filled in the letters using a marker.

Next, I watered down some paints (if I had watercolors in stock, I would have used those instead) and painted over everything to age the map up a bit.  Now, I used a washable marker, which led to a bit more of a distressed look than I was going for, so I used some paper towels to pick up the extra color.  Then I finished it off by tracing around the letters with opaque white paint and the tiniest paint brush you can imagine.  

Voila!  Present!