We are the World

My daughter is heading off to college in a month. We decided this weekend was a good time to start dorm shopping. We found most of the stuff on our list (bedding, pillows, a few clothes that were so NOT on the list Hailey!) One thing she really wanted was this picture of a world map done in watercolor to hang on the wall

She was going to ask my sister to paint it for her. But since she lives 1,500 miles away and mailing a huge canvas is about as fun as mailing a huge canvas, we decided to try it ourselves. You know what that means right? Time for a "BLOG TUTORIAL"! How exciting!

First, buy a huge canvas. The cheaper the better because at this point your not real sure of your painting skillz

Next, find a world map outline on the internet and print it onto some transparency sheets that you found at the Goodwill and SO KNEW would come in handy someday

Blog Tutorial tip, don't touch the wet ink or you will smudge it and you will be unsure of the exact shapes of countries above Africa. (not that you will care)

While you are smudging countries, send your kid out to paint that canvas!

Next step is to get out the overhead projector that you scored for $5.00 (!) at a yard sale and pretend you are a teacher

I loved the projector as a kid! I could watch my teacher flip transparency pages for days! Weird, I know. 

Anyway adjust the image onto your canvas on the wall.

Tape the canvas down, tape the transparency down, and for the love of Pete, once the tracing starts, don't touch the projector! You will wiggle the picture and it won't line up properly and the world may just end. Now get to tracing. Hope you been working out that arm!

I was hoping to pawn this tedious step onto my daughter. Unfortunately for me she is a leftie and she "claims" she couldn't do the tracing because her arm got in the way of the pic. Sounds like a cop out to me.  Anyhoo, next step,  paint that bad boy! I have no pics of this step because we were having too much fun painting to take a pic, but here is what our final result looked like

Quite cute hu? The painting, not us.