The Map

About a year ago, I made my first International sale on my Etsy shop.  The Fiance suggested that it would be super cool to have a map where I could mark places where I have made sales.  I though it was such an awesome idea! Now, for those of you who don't have your own Etsy shop, I will tell you that Etsy for sellers is very helpful and has a map of the world where you can see where people view and favorite your shop.  This is a great feature and helps gauge where interest in your items and shop come from.  However, for me, it lacks that element of satisfaction that comes from pushing a pin into a map every time I get a new sale! I mean seriously, how awesome and motivating is that?

I decided to start my motivational map smaller, since I don't make many international sales, and start off with just  U.S. map.  My future sister in law gave me a spoonflower gift card for Christmas. (AWESOME!!)  I decided to put it to good use and purchase some fabrics I had had my eye on.  I ordered some fabric to cover the cork boards for my "Inspiration Wall" as well as a fat quarter with a brightly colored map of the United States on it.

I had a nice frame from an old wall hanging.  I popped the glass out of it and, not wanting to be wasteful, decided to "recycle" the cork board I used for my inspiration boards at my old house. I used the cardboard insert from my new frame to measure out the area I would need to cut out on the old cork board.

I then used a box cutter to cut out my newly measure cork board shape.

Next, I ironed and starched my fabric map to ensure that no wrinkles stayed behind.

I then lay the map, image side down on my table. I centered my cork board cut out, cork side down, on top of the fabric map.  I trimmed the excess fabric around the cork board leaving approximately 1 inch peeking out on all 4 sides.

After that, I anchored down my hanging fabric edges to the back side of the cork board using a hot glue gun. Watch those fingers people! I burnt myself a time or two on this one.

Each time I moved to the next side, I made sure to pull slightly on my fabric to ensure that it remained tight and would not sag in the middle once completed.

Once all 4 sides were secure, and the hot glue had cooled, I dropped my new cork board into the frame and secured the back.

I then used some heavy duty command strips to hang this baby onto the wall of my new sewing room.

 Next item of business was to find some map pins.  I had no idea these would be so hard to find! I wanted shorter pins and I wanted them all in one color.  I could not, however, find map pins in any store in any color, much less all in the same color. Sigh! So, I went to the one place left I could think of.....Amazon! No, but seriously, if it doesn't exist there, it just plain doesn't exist! OK, maybe it only feels that way. None the less, they not only had map pins, they had them in every imaginable color! I wanted a color that would pop, but would also look nice with the map colors.  I finally settled on orange, the Etsy color! Fitting right? Plus, look how awesome it looks with all of my sales pinned!

Its definitely off to a great start! I realized, as I was placing my pins in position, that this map is missing both Alaska AND Hawaii!!! I got a little sad. So, as you can see, there is one pin floating just south of Arizona. This represents my Hawaii sale until I can add in actual Hawaii and Alaska. (Yes, I  realize Hawaii is no where near south of Arizona) None the less, I can't wait to keep adding pins as I reach further goals in my shop. Maybe someday I will get to expand into a full world map! Who wants to be my next pin? Happy Shopping everyone!