Guest blogger: A Step in the Journey

Super duper excited that Laura Beth agreed to let us showcase her awesome tute with you...
We instantly fell in love with this project & are stoked LB was willing to share it with us all today! xoxo
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Hello everyone!
I am CRAZY excited to be here today at Lolly Jane! 
But first, I must remember my manners & thank Kelli and Kristi for inviting me. It's truly an honor to be here with all of your fabulous readers :)

I'm Laura Beth from A Step in the Journey, but my friends call me LB. It's great to meet you!

A Step in the Journey is a "jack of all trades, (but master of none)" kind of blog that details my adventures in crafting, sewing, baking, photography, and life. I'm the type of girl that sees something fabulous (but pricey) and thinks "How can I make that?" Then I share all the details with my readers.


I'd love it if you would stop by sometime!
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Today I'm sharing a project I entitled 

Oh the Places We'll Go
(Sound vaguely familiar?) 


As many of you know, the 1st anniversary gift is suppose to be paper...


I thought through several ideas, from magazines to tickets to a coupon book... even thought about making a monopoly board featuring all the placed we'd been (a friend did this & it turned out great!).


In the end, however, I kept coming back to a map; III loves maps, so I knew it would be perfect.


With inspiration from My Life and Kids and Thirty Handmade Days, 


I came up with this:

It's a gift that will keep on giving, as we expand out vacationing destinations through the next 60+ years of marriage.


The buttons mark all of the places we have been together... I'd considered a world map but we've only been to Mexico as a twosome & so I thought most of the map would look pretty boring :)


Here is the breakdown!


After cutting apart a US map, I traced all of the individual states on different scraps of patterned paper.

Make sure & write the name of the state on the back of each piece (in a way that shows which side is the top) as this will make putting the puzzle back together a little bit easier! I also laid it out as I cut, to make sure the pieces were fitting.

On a 16x20 canvas I outlined a border with painters tape & mixed some white & brown to give me a soft taupe. Then I whitewashed it a little. Paint. Remove tape.

Using ModPodge I adhered the states to the canvas. I started with the middle states (Texas & up) to try & center the map on the canvas.

Finally, I covered the final map in another layer of ModPodge, painted the wooden letters & attached them with tacky glue. The same for the buttons...

And that is all she wrote!

Frame or not to frame, that is the question...

Come on over to A Step in the Journey and let me know what you think! White you are there, you should sign up for our photography challenge.... (maybe I'll become a mast of one trade by the end of it.)

I'll look forward to seeing you!

And thanks again to the girls of Lolly Jane for having me. It's truly been a pleasure!