Crafty Friday

I took a short break from my work today to do something crafty. I brought home an old round box with a lid that was at our family cottage, when we recently started re-decorating a bedroom. It was a cute, round box that was my husband's Grandmas and I just didn't see the point of throwing it away -- but it definitely needed some sprucing up. I brought it home and I've had it on the shelf in my studio for the Summer trying to think about how I wanted to repurpose it.

I have been seeing a lot of decor with maps lately and I love old maps. I especially love the old school pull-down maps, but that's to discuss for another time. So I started searching around for old Michigan maps, but I didn't find anything that I needed or liked, and then one day I was looking for something on Etsy and I stumbled upon a shop where I could download a vintage 1920's Michigan map for only $2! I purchased the map and printed it out on my computer. I made some templates to cover the box and bingo! a new cute box was born! I sprayed glued the pieces onto the box, and also put a matte spray to protect the ink on the paper since I printed it on my inkjet printer and knew the box would probably be handled. I chose Drummond Island for the lid (because that's where our family cottage is) and my husband noticed that this particular map did not have the Mackinaw Bridge. He said he's been looking forever for a vintage Michigan map that didn't have the bridge, because he saw one framed sometime ago in an old rustic frame and thought it looked really cool.  He said he searched for quite awhile but never found one. So he was really happy to see the map and thought it was cool that I was covering the box with the old map -- even if it was a replica. We must be on the same wavelength! Any guesses to when the bridge was completed? No cheating looking on Google! It's much later than I would have thought.