You may or may not know, but the traditional first anniversary gift is paper. WAAAAY, back when, the hubby and I had just completed our first trip out of the country and I wanted to give him something to commemorate our trip. So I decided to give him a map that we could put more and more pins in as we had more and more trips. This was WAAAAY back when, before I was really a DIYer (hard for me to imagine anymore!), so I had taken my map poster (I think I bought it for $8 at an actual book store) to a craft store for framing. I had them mount it on foam core -- which you can easily do yourself with spray adhesive and frame it. The poster was a non-standard size, which required a custom frame, so I would recommend trying to find one with a standard size (or cutting it), but framing yourself is pretty easy, too (I have a post on the way!).
It happened that whomever took the order just read the dimensions off the poster package instead of actually measuring the poster. This caused them to make 3 wrong sized frames. Though it took 3 weeks to finally get it framed, they waved the cost of framing, saving me $120 (or $60, since I had my 50% off coupon). But, had I just gotten the standard frame and taken out the glass or plastic (or made it myself), it would have cost no more than $20 for the framing anyway.
My misadventure with this project continued when I took the thing out to my car to take home. Try as I might -- and I really have a knack for packing! -- the thing would not fit in my tiny car! I hadn't even thought of that. This was before I was savvy with strapping things to the roof. My how I have grown as a person. I was just about ready to plop on the ground and start crying when this angel with an SUV came along and offered to take it home for me. The kindness of strangers!Anyway, we have accumulated a bunch of pins since then. We use pearl-headed pins to denote places we've been together and tiny straight pins to show places where one (or both of us, but not together) of us has been. The pins aren't particularly noticeable from a distance but I love seeing how full the map has gotten (at least in some areas) over the years. And it makes a great conversation piece.
I am linking up to these great parties!
