travel wall Archives - Bigger Than the Three of Us

Travel Gallery Hallway Reveal

May 16, 2014 by Ashley Mayes 18 Comments

The upstairs hallway has been a project in progress ever since we moved in. It’s taken forever for me to round-up all our pictures, souvenirs, maps, and just general travel items. But round them up I have, and they are finally up on the wall. The arrangement isn’t perfect, because I really want this wall to grow with every trip we take. So, not perfect, but it reflects us and our favorite thing to do… travel.

Oh, and I tried to wait for the sunniest day that we have had to take pictures because it is pretty dreary in the hallway, but I never did have a great sunny day. So, forgive the pictures!

The “Please Be a Traveler” print is available as a free download.

The large map is magnetic and we have different pins for where we have been. To the right (top) of the map is a watercolor painting of a castle that we visited in Scotland. Directly below that, is a cut-out portion of a coffee bean bag from Jamaica (Blue Mountain – the best coffee that I have ever had!).

“The World is a Book…” is a print from Gus & Lula. You can buy it here.

The highland cow is actually a pillow that I framed. We attached pilot wings to a canvas to represent the flights that we took as a family during our last trip. I made the embroidered map art and will continue to update that as we travel together as a family.

The top left picture is a picture we took in Italy and then used the Waterlogue app on it. The black tin plate was a Goodwill find. The multiple opening coin art was a recent DIY that is one of my favorites!

So, I really need a wider lens to really capture what the hallway looks like. Oh well! We love it and the memories each item brings to mind.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my link.

Display Travel Coins as Art

May 7, 2014 by Ashley Mayes 36 Comments

I’m really loving the first Wednesdays of the month! On the first Wednesday (for the past few months), I’ve been teaming up with a great bunch of ladies to bring you repurposed, recycled and reused projects! It has been so helpful for me to really look at what I have in my house and figure out how I can use it to make something that reflects us. I just adore it. Anyways, today’s project is short and sweet. Sometimes, that’s just the kind of project that you need, right?

Luke and I love to travel and we especially love to travel outside the US. Seeing other cultures, stuffing ourselves with new food and walking for miles to explore are all things that we just thrive on. So, leftover currency change is a part of that process. It never fails that when we get home we find change here and there (stuffed in parts of my wallet, coat pockets or my purse). So, I’ve been stuffing them in a ring box for years and occasionally I will take some out for a trip, but most of the time I just forget about it.

Well, we have this travel gallery hallway almost completed (for up to our current trip) and I’ve been wanting to do something with the coins for art. I couldn’t think of anything modern that felt like us. I tried just dropping them in a shadowbox, gluing them in a line in a regular frame and arranging them in a unique way… none of that felt right. Then, I had an ‘ah-ha moment’ the other day while browsing for a picture frame for the kitchen. I came across some ‘baby’s first year’ frames with twelve circle openings. See where I’m going with this? Circle cuts out of the mat board framing each coin would be just the thing.

I called around to a few stores to find out who could do the circle cuts. Hobby Lobby was able to do them and offered tons of sizes (plus I was able to use a 40% off coupon which is always a plus!).

Ok, so here’s what I came up with:

It was super simple, but I’ll show you what I did.

1. Gathered the change that I wanted to include.

2. Picked my frame. Any random frame would work, but I liked that this one was oblong. It was black, but I gave it a few quick coats of white spray paint.

3. Took my frame and coins to Hobby Lobby to have them cut the mat for me.

4. Put packing tape on the coins and stuck them in the holes (I didn’t use glue because I wanted to be able to change this display down the road).

I should have the travel gallery wall reveal up on Friday! I hope I never want to change it, because I have tons of nail holes! lol. =)

Ok, want to see what the other ladies have been up to?

Planter Accent Table by Thrifty and Chic

Faux Grain Sack Pillows by It All Started With Paint

Super Easy Lamp Redo by Life as a Thrifter

Vintage Camera Lamp by Lovely Etc

Patriotic Painted Denim Bunting by All Things G&D

If you loved this post, then you might love:

Free Travel Printable

Free Explore Printable

The Travel Gallery Wall Reveal

How to Transform a Photo to Art

Linking up to:

Remodelaholic, C.R.A.F.T., Project Inspire(d), The Makers, The Winthrop Chronicles, Home Stories A-Z, Work It Wednesday, Fry Sauce and Grits, Liz Marie Blog, The Inspiration Gallery, Creativity Unleashed – The Bold Abode, Remodelaholic, Whipperberry, Tatertots and Jello, Link It or Lump It, Sunday Soiree and Frugal Crafty Blog Hop.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my link.

Watercolor Travel Art

February 3, 2014 by Ashley Mayes 19 Comments

You guys ready to hear something crazy? I was one of those people that didn’t have a smart phone until about 8 months ago. I couldn’t believe why you would want to have internet on your phone, because I didn’t want to be that connected to the world. Also, I can be super cheap on all things electronics so, to me, it was an unnecessary expense. Well, my old phone quit and, with Luke’s work discount, it cost about $12 extra a month to get a “big-girl” phone. Well, Luke convinced me to do it and I love it. I do not buy in to the extras on the phone. I don’t have music on there; I barely know how to text and if you ask me to search for something on there…well forget it. I know how to call people and I use a few free apps. I will never be one of those people (hmm… my husband) who buy apps… I just can’t. I would rather spend my money on other things…BUT…over Christmas I was on Luke’s phone and found something amazing. One of this Twitter people posted a picture of a photo using the Waterlogue app. It was love at first sight. I bought it; she who says that she doesn’t ever buy apps. Yep, it’s the one app that I have on my phone that I bought and the only thing that I’ve actually “installed” on my phone myself. Say what? Yep, pretty proud of myself. lol.

I imported a picture from our trip to Italy and then used the app make it a watercolor.

Pretty cool, right? I’ve been holding on to this post for awhile, because I wanted to show the completed travel gallery wall. BUT, life happens…or the vacuum happened. I broke two frames and they are being a pain in the rear to get back up there. So, I’m showing the artwork now and the wall later, k?

Anyways, back to the app. I LOVE landscape photos with lots of colors and how the app manipulates it. Personally, I’m not impressed with people and what the app does to the face. I also feel like it does poorly with high-contrast pictures. For example, we have a pretty cool picture of a castle in Scotland and I was curious to see how neat the watercolor would look. Not so much. It pretty much lost all visual appeal.

However, brighter vibrant pictures are amazing! I printed a small one (seen below) but for our next trip, I will definitely be printing something larger to stand on it’s own. So, all in all $2.99 isn’t a bad price, especially if you are going to print and use it as art.

Oh, and I did manage to get a Google Map up on the “Travel” page. I’m not super happy with it but, until I find a better option, it’s there to stay. San Francisco is the first city that I wrote a review for and you can find that there as well.

*Edited : See comments for file size after export.

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Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my link.

Pinterest Made Me Do It :: Embroidered Map

January 6, 2014 by Ashley Mayes 14 Comments

I’m back at the “Pinterest Made Me Do It” posts; at least for this week. =)

I saw this embroidered map on Pinterest a month ago and fell in love.

On our travel gallery wall, we have a world map that is magnetic. We have different magnetic balls placed where we traveled. We love the map, but it doesn’t have a breakdown of the United States. So, that’s where this little project comes in. I thought it would be fun to do the United States and we will cross them off only when we have traveled to each state as a family of three. Luke and I have been to most of the states, but we want Greyson to continue to take an active part in our travels.

Step 1: Gather your supplies. I picked up the embroidery thread and hoop at JoAnn’s. I used a coupon and I think it came to about $3.20. I have quite the fabric stash, so I dug through that to get a piece that would work.

Step 2: Print or draw (which Luke did by hand – our printer isn’t working right now) a map and tape it to a window. Make sure your map is small enough to fit in the embroidery hoop.

Step 3: Tape your fabric over the map and use a Sharpie to trace the United States.

4. Put your fabric in your embroidery hoop and start filling in the places you have traveled.

I really like how it turned out. Each time we travel with Greyson we can fill it in and I think he will really enjoy that. Now, I just need to add it to the travel gallery wall.

Some of my past “Pinterest Made Me Do It” posts include: Creating a cursive quote art, How-To Clean a Mattress and a Photoshop tutorial for get a circle cut picture.

Linking up to:

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. I receive a small commission at no cost to you when you make a purchase using my link.

Pinterest Made Me Do It :: Printable Travel Art

July 8, 2013 by Ashley Mayes 12 Comments

I’ve always been a lover of good quotes. Maybe it comes from my love of reading books? I’m not sure, but I used to cut quotes out of magazines, print them off the computer and arrange them in a binder. I loved to look through them and reorganize. Weird, huh? Anyways, as I’ve been working on our travel-themed gallery wall, I’ve been pinning things I like. We are so incredible close with calling the hallway “finished until our next trip,” but it lacked a few pieces of art (printable travel quotes). Here are a few quotes that I’ve pinned: