Your Average Girls.: Minnesota Pride

Like most of my projects, this one was inspired while browsing pinterest...

Here, here! Let it be known that I, Elise Marie, LOVE the state of Minnesota. I love snow, lakes, Macgyver (yep, he's from MN), fishing, hot-dish and most of all, the Minnesota River Valley of Southern Minnesota. Represent! **chest pounds self**

This plaque has a heart in the location of my hub's hometown, my hometown and our current place of residence. Here's how I made it:

Supplies:

Wood plaque (I had this one in my closet for years, but I believe I found it at the hobby lobby for $2-3)
Wood-burner
Outline of the state of your choice
Tape
Ball point pen and pencil
Staple gun (for hanging)
Yarn, string, floss (for hanging)

First find and size an outline of your favorite state, thank you Google images.

Next, cut the template to size, draw on your hearts, and tape the outline to the plaque exactly where you want it.

Apparently I'm really bad at drawing hearts! See all those smudges? Took me WAY too long to draw 3 hearts...

Then, with your ball point pen, firmly go over the outline and hearts. I went over each line about 3 times just to make sure it was embossed into the wood. Once the template is taken off the wood, it's almost impossible to get it in the same place so go over the lines a couple times, just to be sure.

A bit hard to see in the picture, but once the paper template is removed, there should be an embossed image on the plaque.

Now comes the fun part! Burning the image into the wood. Plug in the wood-burner and let it get smokin' hot. Then start tracing! Lightly trace the outline several times until desired darkness is reached. This is the first tracing.

This is after 3-4 passes.

And it's done! Well, almost. I wanted to show my River Valley pride by hanging this on our wall. This plaque did not come with a hanging kit so, I rigged one up using yarn and staples (not kidding about the Macgyver thing...)