Reiter Reader: A Day of Craftiness

I had a couple of projects on my mind for our office. My theme has been travel, so far I have bamboo shades and a clock with the map of the world on it-a Christmas present from my Grandma. I have two large maps, one of the United States and one of the world, and I wanted a neat way to hang them. Zach had already glued the U.S. map to a cardboard display board. It was somewhat successful, but I didn't like that it wasn't completely flat. I got a large piece of styrofoam insulation and had the lovely gentleman at Lowe's cut it in half for me so it would fit in the car! Below is half of the styrofoam (the whole thing cost $10), which I trimmed with a utility knife to match the 3' by 4' map of the world.

Below is the cardboard version on the left and the styrofoam version on the right. I used push pins to hold the edges of the map to the styrofoam so I didn't have to use any glue or tape. I was going to line the edges with fabric or ribbon, but there was a perfectly sized white border on the map that I could just fold over and pin to cover the styrofoam edges. Voila!

Okay, for the next project, unfortuneately, I don't have a picture of the original computer desk. It was large, and had a set of 2 file drawers on each end. I loved the file drawers but the whole desk was just so BIG, and Zach wanted something more proportional to our office. So he found this great deal at Menards. :) But I didn't want to give up the file drawers. He took the big heavy desktop off the file drawers and took the legs off the bottom. Now the problem was that the top of the drawers was unfinished/uncovered particle board. I decided to find some Mod-Podge and get to hiding that ugliness!

Here I'm flattening out a map I want to use for the top.

Trying out some ideas...

I decided to go with travel pictures on one and a map on the other. I used school glue to put them on the top of the drawers because I didn't realize I could use Mod Podge for the gluing down. It may have reduced the wrinkling and bumps I had if I had used Mod Podge, but I can't go back now.

Finished product on set of drawers #1:

This one is a map of Paris that has some circles and highlighting I did from when we were in Paris. It will make me remember that trip more now than it did folded away in a picture album.