Peace on Earth

I must confess after coming up with the idea for these ornaments and then making them, I forgot to put them on my tree! I was thinking of them as prototypes and planned to make a bunch more … maybe next year?

As I’ve mentioned before, I really love old maps and use them whenever I can in decorating projects, cards etc. I saw a roundup of holiday decorating ideas using maps on the Apartment Therapy site and loved the huge map with the words “Joy to the World” painted on it. That got me thinking of ways to use that title on a smaller scale. And when I saw these vintage looking ornaments using old book pages, I decided to use maps instead.

I used glass ornaments because that’s what I had on hand, but this would work with styrofoam balls as well. For the second version, I tried just covering half the ornament with the maps, which made for an interesting effect because both sides of the paper show. It was a little tricky to keep a clean edge _ I masked off the line with tape, and then used a craft knife to carefully cut it away afterward. But I couldn’t find my blue painter’s tape, so I was using duct tape, which was not ideal.

I used vinyl letters cut with my Silhouette machine for the “JOY” lettering… I couldn’t decide whether to leave it like that or add “to the world” but 1) It is kind of hard to position tiny letters on a curved surface and 2) my husband said I should leave something to the imagination rather than spell it out. I think it might look better to use a paint pen to write the word on there instead. And while I purposely picked very colorful maps, I might try some with more muted colors as well.

I also made a banner to hang up in my living room, and this time, I actually hung it before Christmas!

I used my Silhouette machine to cut out the shapes from old maps, and I used some of the index pages from my atlas for the lettering. It’s hard to see, but I added a bit of glitter around the edges of the letters. And I hung small silver ornaments in between.

I really love how it came out. It works well with the sort of vintage-y feel of the rest of the holiday decorations in that room.