DIY Gold Framed Vintage State Map

A few weeks ago Beckie of Infarrantly Creative had the ingenious idea of doing a week long State Pride Tour with 30 creative bloggers from all over the United States.  Each day there will be six tours featuring a project, craft or recipe to showcase our home state.  Each blogger will send you to the next blog on the tour.  So be sure to click around and check in each day so you don’t miss a thing.  Then on Monday Sept 23, Beckie will host a state pride  linky party where everyone can join in on the fun!!

I’M NEXT IN LINE… with Missouri!!!  I’m following Charlie from Attempting Aloha , if you haven’t guessed, she shared a fun Hawaii-themed project!

I was born and raised in Missouri, the Show Me State.  I grew up in St. Louis County and have raised my family just 15 minutes west of St. Louis.

When Beckie asked me to join the State Pride Tour my first thought was to come up with a craft or DIY using a map of Missouri.  Decorating with maps is huge right now, and I’ve had my eye on this Paris Art set  at Wisteria for a while.  I like the idea of using a vintage map print displayed in several gold frames.  I figured I could surely recreate this idea for a mere fraction of that $999 price!

I made mine on a much smaller scale, but I love how it looks in my office!  I found a gorgeous 16″ x 19″ Antique map of Missouri PRINT on Premium Archival Matte Paper from an etsy shop called Ancient Shades.  It was gorgeous, and the size would work almost perfectly in four 8″x10″ frames!

SUPPLIES:

I ordered my Antique map print of Missouri, and it arrived from Romania in about two weeks!  I picked up four black 8×10 frames from Target, if you are lucky enough to live near IKEA the Ribba Frame would work as well, and one tube of Gold Rub N Buff from Hobby Lobby (I’m sure you can find this at most craft stores).  The piece of sandpaper and old towel and scissors (not pictured) I had on hand.  That’s all you need

I could have just spray painted the frames in gold, but I’ve been wanting to try the Rub N Buff and this seemed like the perfect project for it.

I sanded my frames just a little since they were so shinny, then wiped them down with a clean cloth, making sure no dust was left behind

How to use Rub N Buff:

Rub N Buff is a cool ‘miracle’ product that you can pick up at most craft stores .  It comes in several colors like gold, brass, pewter, and silver.  It works great on old furniture hardware, frames, lighting fixtures, etc. You can use Rub N Buff on almost anything!

Use it in a well ventilated area.  If you can’t go outside, be sure to open a window or turn on a fan.

You will get messy using the Rub N Buff.  You can try using an old cloth over your finger, or latex gloves but I read that it works best if you use just your fingers.  Clean up was a breeze with hot soap and water and a scrub brush when needed.

Squeeze a small pea sized amount onto your finger tip then rub it back and forth over the surface.  I covered the front surface, sides and inside edge of my frames. A little goes a long way, I didn’t even use 1/2 the tube.

If you first open your Rub n’ Buff and it seems thick and cakey like and when you squeeze, you see a lot of liquid, put the cap back on and try to work it back into the wax by squeezing the tube with your fingers.

This stuff dries pretty quickly, so after you have rubbed the entire surface and have the coverage you want, use a soft cloth to give it a good buffing to produce a beautiful shine.  That’s all there is to it!!

My map was shipped rolled into a tube – so I laid it out and placed several heavy books on it for a few days to help flatten it out to make it easier to work with.

When I was ready to frame the map, I used a pencil and one of the mats that came in the frames to mark, measure and cut my map into 4 even pieces, cutting off a little extra of the outer trim.

Then I simply placed each piece of the map in the frame and hung them on the wall in my office.

Hanging them was probably the trickiest part of this whole project.  So, I used this little trick I saw on Young House Love on how to hang a picture frame collage.

 A little Show Me State love!  This would make a great gift for newlyweds or  housewarming.

I would love to know…What state do you live in? Do you live where you were born?