A Mappy First Anniversary Present

I couldn't make up my mind on the right present for my little sister and her husband's first anniversary present. I bought their card before their anniversary, but I just didn't have any good ideas for a "paper" present. After coming across a Portland map that my mom didn't need anymore, I knew I wanted to do something with it for them.

I found some ideas on-line and originally thought I would use the entire map, so I bought a large frame for it at Goodwill. After playing around with it for a while, I decided to cut up the map and do something a bit smaller. This way, the art could go on any wall, any shelf, alone or with other frames, etc.

Here are some of the ideas I found on-line:

All super cute and really good ideas. I already had some 10x10 corkboard, so I went to the store and purchased a 10x10 shadow box and short pins. Then I got to work. I decided to cut out hearts of where they met (using a cookie cutter), where they were married, and where they live. Luckily all were in Portland. I was very careful about truly finding the right street on the map as so many of the streets in Portland are called the same thing, but don't continue through, so it is easy to think you have the right street when you don't. I even got on the computer a couple of times to check directions and the computer's map to make sure I was right. 

I gave it to my sister and she really really liked it. She shared with me later that her husband couldn't believe that I had made it. Well good, I am glad they have something to also remember where they first lived together.