So I got this bright idea to start making some of my home decor by hand. Some projects (the really simple ones, and when I say simple I mean they don't require you to do anything buy buy items) turned out really great. Other pieces that required a little bit more effort turned out very mediocre at best. Which brings me to today's post.

I saw this world map canvas on Pinterest that I thought would be perfect for my living room. After doing some googling I realized getting the size I was looking for just wasn't cohesive with my budget. The one I was looking for had a water color version of the map split up into five smaller canvases that made one large piece when put together. I did some more digging and found out I could do it myself for a little less than the cost of the "professional" ones. I looked at everything I would need and the list was short and simple. This should be easy right?

Originally I was going to go with an engineer print, a suggestion given to me by my sister. After looking at the sizes Staples was offering, realizing I would have to make sure the image would have to be the right dimensions for the quality of the size I wanted, and that this would require too much effort for a person like me this just wasn't going to work. I searched some more and found out I could substitute a poster for the engineer print. I also decided to switch from using five canvases to three (later would prove to be a possible mistake).

I bought the supplies which are Mod Podge, canvases, and a 36x24 poster. I ordered the Mod Podge and poster from Amazon (Amazon Prime has become my new best friend). The canvases came from Hobby Lobby. I have everything I need and then I realize it's going to be really difficult to split this poster into three pieces. I decide to just follow through with the project anyway. I taped the poster edges to a 36x24 cutting mat that I had and pull out my rotary cutter. This is where everything went down hill.

My cuts went at an angle instead of nice clean ones like I imagined in my head. After I butchered them up enough to get them to fix the 12X24 canvases the next step is to spread Mod Podge all over the canvases. This resulted in getting Mod Podge all over my cutting mat since the sponge brushes I had were a little too wide. The next step required me to wet the poster so it was "easier to work with". I realized this was a mistake once the water hit my poster pieces and they began to roll up. I'm going to assume that the person whom I followed the directions from had a better paper quality poster. The next step was to place the wet poster on top of the canvas and smooth it out to get rid of as many air bubbles as possible. The last step was to wait for the applied poster to dry and then apply another coat of Mod Podge.

When everything was done what I ended up with was a poster with very visible jagged edges on a three canvases that I call "art". I ask my husband what he thinks and of course he lies to spare my feelings and says "it looks good, I like it." We hung it on the living room wall and that's where it sits to this day.

I might redo this in a few weeks. When I do I'll stick with the original idea of using five canvases instead of three. Since I used a 36x24 poster I cut it into three pieces so they would fit a 12x24 canvas. I then had to cut them multiple times to get them to about a 9x23 size (which is how I ended up with very jagged edges) to get the look I desired. If I would have split them 5 ways they might have filled my wall the way I was looking for it to. I also won't wet the poster since it made it more difficult with it rolled up and even ruined some of the color quality.

My next project will be a large wall clock because when you screw up something "simple" you have to go for something even more difficult, right?