Map Books

Now that both my girls are at secondary school, I've found myself with an extra hour to myself EVERY DAY!!!  Whoop whoop!!  The bus whisks them away to Stonehaven at 7:40, which is awful in that none of us are morning people and getting them out of the door on time is a daily struggle.  However, the payback is that from then until I open the shop at 11am, my time is my own.

I've been for a walk almost every school morning so far this term, and I've spent more time in my sewing room than I've ever managed before.  Yay!!

Instead of going straight to my beloved embellisher, I had a sort through some of the assorted bits and pieces that I've been accumulating.  Earlier this year I did a blog about a trip to Glasgow where I stumbed upon an antique/ junk shop. 

I bought some old linen backed maps from there, and decided it was time to put them to good use.  This is the result.

It was actually surprisingly hard to take a pair of scissors to a map!  My mum was a geaography teacher so I grew up in a world of maps.  My hubby is a map fanatic too, and it did seem very, very wrong to cut one up.  (He gasped when I told him!).

However, I reasoned with myself that these maps are not particularly rare as there were so many printed. 
Also, by turning them into book covers, one map can be enjoyed by many, many more people than the whole map ever would - especially if it's folded up in a cupboard in my house!

This one's a bit wonky but I tell myself that this just adds to its charm!

The books each have a piece of map featuring a town or village - as this was a map of Angus these feature Glamis, Forfar, Kirriemuir & Brechin.