Didn't work out the way I thought...

Do you ever have one of those projects, where you spend a lot of time planning it and figuring out kinks, and cutting out things, and once you put it all together, it is a complete an utter epic fail? That happened to me this week. The good news is, I was able to re-think the project, and make it work out, but in a slightly different way.

So, the guy in my life, J, is super-obsessed with maps. Seriously. Those of you who know him can confirm this. The good news is maps look fun framed. I've been know to exasperate this by gifting him several antique framed maps over the many, many years I've know him. Well since he spends alot of time at my house, I'm trying to incorporate him more into the decorations. He calls my house to girly, but I'd like to state, at least I have no pink walls. I could see doing a purple room....but I digress.

So I got really excited to do this project. You see I'd be complaining about not having any enough magnets for the fridge, for quite a while.

As you can see, yes I am that person with I <3 my yellow lab magnets. I blame my mother! Love you mom!

So, anyways, in order to incorporate J's love of maps, I got online and found copy of the 1895 World Atlas, with state breakdowns. I printed them out on cardstock (originally) and printed and cut them out. If anyone is interested in having the printable version here.

Then I thought it would be great to give them a little more depth, so I took some foam board, traced each individual map, and cut them out.

As you can see, I had a special helper, who would not leave me ALONE! He's lucky he's cute. That's all I have to say. There was something about the texture he loved. I numbered each piece with it's corresponding map and then sprayed the edges with some leftover spray paint.

Since J was taking the pictures, you also ended up with this....

Nice huh? Anyways, after doing all that, I then let them dry. The next day, I tested one map. I glued it onto it's corresponding foam board. Since I wasn't happy with the sides, I then wrapped them in very thin brown ribbon. I then sprayed the gloss protective spray over the whole piece, and it FAILED! The map didn't stick to the foam board anymore, it shriveled up, got crinkly, and I got very frustrated. I tried a few more, and gave up. I didn't even take pictures because I hated them. It was awful, so I regrouped. Fortunately, I had bought the Avery Magnet Sheets so I reprinted the maps on them. And cut them out, again. I then sprayed those with two coats of the protective gloss coat.

Let them dry and VOILA! My boring over cluttered fridge went from blah to this....

I'm sure when J finally sees them, I'll get in trouble for the states not being size-proportinate to each other, and then he'll rearrange them to some complicated system, like population of 1895, that I don't understand. But the point is, maps make him happy, and more magnets for me make me happy. So we're all happy.