States Project

I will be the first to admit I am a Pinterest project doer! If I see something I love I have to make it right away. This project was a definite must-do as soon as I saw it!

I found the original project here. I saw the picture and got excited. Once I read the tutorial, I knew it would be simple enough and I got started!

I went out to hunt for a map! Do you know how hard it is to find a map these days?! It was a bit crazy! But, I found one, a HUGE one tucked away in the back corner of Walmart.  As soon as I got it home, I cut out all of the states, one by one, and even followed to squiggly lines of the rivers!

Then I got my fabric collection, and used my fabric scraps to make the shapes. I am embarrassed to say that I had well over 50 pieces of fabric!

This part was a bit of a mind game at first, but once I got the hang of it, it went fairly quickly.

You have to cut a piece of Wunder Under (or Under Wunder, I always forget!) right side up to get the shape of the state. Then iron it onto your fabric.

Once it is ironed on the fabric, trace the state face down onto the Wunder Under paper. I labeled each state, just in case, especially the square ones!

Then came the cutting again. Squiggly rivers and all! And, of course, I needed an adorable fabric cutting helper!!

Once I got the states all cut out, I found an image on the computer of the USA, so I could make sure everything was lined up properly, and the tutorial highly recommended it! It made it so much better!

I started in the middle and worked my way out ironing each state on as I went. I used a white piece of fabric as the background.

This map was a lot larger than I thought I originally wanted, but it is actually just right. But, I couldn’t find a frame that was large enough, so I decided I would just make my own frame.

I went to Home Depot, got some wood, and used the miter box to create a frame with mitered corners! It ended up being a whopping 50″ x 32″! It is HUGE!

Once it was assembled, I spray painted it with a bright teal that I already had on hand. To back the map, I didn’t want to use wood because it would be too heavy, so I used a huge piece of cardboard and some glue.

After it dried, I centered the map in the frame and stapled it to the frame! VIOLA! The finished HUGE map of the USA!

I absolutely love it and think it is a great addition to our new playroom!

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