Several of you requested the tutorial for the wood pallet map we made for my son’s room that I shared with you the other day. This was a super simple project and cost literally nothing for us other than the cost of the map. You can’t beat that now can you?
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First of all we picked up some pallets for FREE at our local nursery. They will allow you to take up to 8 pallets before they charge. Score!
Then comes the tough part. These pallets have some serious nails holding them together. It takes some serious muscle strength to get these planks off. We ended up cutting off the two ends right up to the nails and then just pulling out the middle nails.
Then I took a heavy duty file and sanded down the edges and the rough spots of each plank.
Make sure you have enough pallets to have a bit of overhang on the map so you can see your pallet wood. It gives it an antiqued look. You can cut your map down a bit so that it fits better too, which is what we did.
We connected the pallet planks together with a piece of plywood on the back and then glued them into place with Gorilla Wood Glue (my favorite wood glue).
We found our map on Amazon for a $1! They had a few different styles and we went for a more Old World look.
Trim around the edges in a non-patterned way to give it a more worn look without crisp clean edges.
Then take a candle and burn the map around the edges. We did this outside and had a pitcher of water on hand….just in case.
We burnt the map all around the edges and then even burnt some holes in the middle of the map in some of the less prominent areas on the map.
Lay your map onto the wood pallets. This next part you will need and Exact-o Knife to cut the map into long strips. Now I debated about cutting the map, but I wanted the individual wood planks to show through and give some detail to the map. I was worried that if I just Mod Podged the map without cutting it, it would just be a flat map.
I am SO glad I decided to cut the map. It added so much more detail and un-perfectness to the overall look.
We recruited the kids to help us hold the map into place while we cut it. We did not want it to move at all and mess up the cut.
We cut the map one section at a time. When we had a new strip, we Mod Podged it onto the individual plank.
We purposely left a small space between each plank.
After all the strips were glued onto the pallets, we let it dry completely. Then we put two coats of polyurethane in a satin finish on the map to keep it nice and protected.
I LOVE it! And so does my son! He wants to pin the places he has been to on this map as well. What do you think?
I was inspired to make this map when I came across this image (below) on Pinterest. I searched all over to find the original source of the map so I could link back and give credit to who made this and I could not for the life of me find out where it is from.
My search led me to believe that it may have been sold at Hobby Lobby a while ago. If anyone knows where I can find the original site for this I would love to know so I can give them credit and a link!
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