Anniversary Gift

Chris and I don't typically buy each other gifts, but this year for our anniversary, I wanted to make him something.   I came across Minimoz's awesome idea, but wanted to work with what I had and make it slightly more masculine for Chris.  Here is what I did:

1. I had this frame that I wasn't using so I decided to use the matting as the base for my creation.

2. I also had burlap (how I "manned" this up) in my possession so I just laid out a piece to wrap around the matting and cut.

3.  I just taped the burlap with packing tap around the matting.  You could certainly hot glue or use another adhesive.

4. I cut a heart using my Cricut, but you could also just cut out a shape using Autoshapes in your Microsoft Office programs or just by searching for a Google image to copy and resize.  I printed it on cardstock for a little sturdiness when tracing.  I just laid it over the frame to determine if I liked the size.

5.  I also happened to have a few atlases that I don't use (obsolete due to map app on my phone) so I just traced the heart I cut in an effort to make the destination in the center for each of my locations (where we met, where we married and where we live).

6.  I didn't have a map where I liked the layout for our "married" city (Iowa City), so I just searched for a Google image, printed it on card stock and cut it out.  It also gave a little more color (albeit pink) to my finished product.

7.  I used dafont.com (because it's amazing!) to find the font called Dutch Harley.  I just formatted to the size I wanted in Word and printed it on cardstock and used my paper cutter to trim it as much as possible.  I didn't measure anything; just eyed the layout.  I used removable double sided table because it was handy.

8.  It was tight to frame with the burlap, but the frame has those fold down thingys so I was able to tighten it appropriately...and that's it.  Sorry for the glare in the photos.

Another idea:  If your locations overlap (i.e. you were married where you met), you could do "We became a family" or "We became 3", etc. if that were another location.

You can see more homemade gift ideas on my pinterest board.  Feel free to put in requests if you are on my Christmas list :)