I’m back to blogging after a restorative long weekend with girlfriends in Hot Springs, AR. It’s amazing what good friends, a little wine, a few adventures, and lots of laughter can do! Today’s post shares how friends Martha, Kathy, and I started with old road maps, acrylic paints, and Gelli Plates to create crap art, and how we used creativity and other products to turn our crapsmanship into craftsmanship.

This project was inspired by an article in an old issue of Craft, Paper, Scissors about using old road maps to create wrapping paper. The idea was to use the Gelli Plate, paint, and stencils to stamp great designs onto a large map. You can see Kathy’s attempt above. It’s colorful but unimpressive. Kathy’s was the best design on the three of ours, so you can imagine what Martha’s and mine looked like!

Not wanting to give up too soon, we got out assorted stamps and stamp pads. In the photo above, you can see Martha’s crap improving as she adds layers of design. We also tried stamping some more paint on to the map with household items such as corks and bottle tops. The photo below shows my almost-completed work …

…and this last photo shows my end product.

I like it so much, I’m not yet willing to cut it up and wrap it around a gift. So I’m hoarding it in my Finished Projects stash, just waiting for the right use.