Oh look, another pretty thing I made

I found another wonderful-thing-with-lots-of-potential at the dump and knew it could be turned into something that is just wonderful in every way - and I had just the thing to perform the transformation. 

Here it is before - it's useful, but kind of ugly, right?

Well some PVA and one old ordnance survey map later, here it is! I still need to varnish it to protect the surface but my golly gosh I do love it! 

The map, rather perfectly, is a Lake District National Park map - home sweet home! I may have moved away but the Lakes is always home, and always part of me - and now it's a beautiful, useful part of my house!

I gave it a really good scrub with scrubby scrubbing stuff, I cut the map to the right size for the surfaces, I pondered covering the entire thing like a decoupage thing of wonder but decided I liked it like this. I carefully stuck the pieces of map in place and used a wooden spatula to smooth out every single little tiny bump and lump, and wrinkle and press it really firmly down. 

The excess PVA that squidged out of the sides I coated the surface with to ensure it was all properly glooped in place.

Tomorrow, when it's dry, I will varnish it and once THAT is dry it will go in our very nice living room in place of something less nice that will be tarted up too!