Framing Maps: Part 1

I have a thing for maps, especially old maps. When I was a kid, my grandparents bought an atlas for us kids to use, and I was hooked.

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I knew the capitals of all 50 states by the time I was 8 and forced all of my family members to quiz me before dinner.

Now than I'm an adult working on sharpening my eye for interior design, I really love the look of framed maps. Case in point:

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Framed maps are such a great and easy way to display places that are special to you. Naturally I wanted to start with framing a map of good ol' North America, so when Nan and I went to our first estate sale back in October, we scooped up this awesome Rand McNally atlas from the 1960s.

Added bonus: there was a smaller sized leaflet of the continents inside, just begging to be displayed in a pretty frame. Enter this cute little shadow box-type frame that we scored at a local thrift store.

Unfortunately the back looked like this:

I cut the cardboard/paper stuff off with a knife and pulled up the staples holding everything in place. Once I removed the cardboard and the pink flower photo from the inside, I was still left with a pink border. I thought this would be a problem until I placed the map inside. The border actually compliments the pink color in the map!

I'm planning on adding this to the collage I'm slooowwwllyyyy assembling to go above the TV. And we still have a few more maps to frame, so... to be continued...