Repurposing City Maps & Picture Frames

Our older daughter lives in "The City by the Bay," which also happens to be my old hometown.  She absolutely loves everything about San Francisco.  On our last visit, I noticed she didn't have any coasters, and since she is "borrowing" her grandparents' antique furniture...let's just say, the coffee table will soon need a new coat of varnish.  Until then, I decided to combine fun with functional, and use an old SF map to create coasters and a coordinating serving tray for her.

Here is the tray I started with, found at a thrift store for $3.

Someone had previously added handles onto a picture frame, so it saved me a step.

I painted the frame with an antique white paint using a light brush stroke here and there to give the tray a distressed, vintage look.  After all, paper maps are vintage, right?

After deciding on the section of the map for the tray, I cut it to size to fit inside the frame and decoupaged it into place.  Then I painted the handles sage green to match the green parks on the map.  I sealed the entire tray with antique-colored decoupage to emphasize a vintage look.

Then I cut four 4" squares from another section of the map and decoupaged them onto stone tiles.  

Not leaving well enough alone, I decoupaged a small box to neatly hold the four tile coasters when not being used.

For the photo op, I leaned the tray against my kitchen wall, coincidently right under a schematic of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Now I'm going to pop the tray and coaster set into the mail -- marked fragile, handle with care -- and surprise my daughter with a little handmade DIY.

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