Educational Artwork

I've been looking for something to put up on the wall above Caleb's bed for a while now.  I wanted something unique and one of a kind.  At first I was going to do a gallery wall of his artwork-- but I soon decided that a wall full of metal frames with glass was an accident waiting to happen in this kid's room.  So I did a bit of searching around on Esty and found this.

It's a vintage map of Canada from 1936.

I thought that finding a really old really cool map was going to be difficult, but I found TONS of original old maps of all different varieties-- some over a hundred years old-- for pretty reasonable prices on Etsy.  There were street maps, nautical maps, maps of provinces, countries, territories-- everything.  Very cool stuff.  I knew I wanted to frame mine and I wanted it to be big-- so my choices were a bit limited since I wanted it to fit into the largest Ikea Ribba frame. After a bit of searching and emailing back and forth with a few Etsy sellers I purchased this old Canadian map for $8.00.  Not bad.

It almost fit into the frame perfectly-- it was slightly too big-- so we had to trim it a tiny bit so it would work.  I picked up two big sheets of white poster board and put them together to give the map a neutral backing.  The map isn't perfect-- there are a few tiny holes, rips, marks, creases, and the paper is yellowed-- but I love it.  It has  lots of character :)

I know you're all thinking-- how is this frame any different from a gallery wall of little frames with glass?  It sure looks like one great BIG sheet of glass.  But it's not.  The largest Ikea Ribba frames have clear plastic instead of glass.  It makes them lighter to hang and so much safer with young kids around.  But it totally looks like glass-- totally fooled me :)

And that is the educational artwork we put up in Caleb's room.  Now every time he goes to bed he wants us to tell him ALL about EVERY place in Canada.  Oh boy...

** I found many many more great vintage maps and charts-- if anyone is looking for a cool map-- email me and I'll send you the links to some other great finds **