How To Make Personalized Placemats With City Maps
A cool and easy way to make personalized placemats is to decoupage them with maps of your favorite cities.
Whenever I go on a city break I always come home with a handbag full of free maps. I can't resist them. Even on a day trip to Brighton, which I know really well I still put one of the free maps at the station in my handbag.
I don't even need the maps to find my way around a city as there's an app on my phone for that, but I love the paper maps.
I love looking at them working out where everything is in relation to each other. Maps are my favorite free souvenir.
Simple Upcycled City Map Placemats
The maps I've collected over the years tend to just sit around in a drawer, well I actually keep them in the Map Suitcase I made last year.
I have used some of them in crafts before like with my map chairs. This time I decided that I would use them to upcycle some rather grubby old table mats.
I picked city maps from some of my favorite European cities to upcycle and personalize my table mats with.
The results were a fantastic improvement on the old placemats and made for a great discussion point at the table. As not only do these map personalized placemats look great they spark conversation as we reminisce about our favorite city trips.
(The gorgeous plates by the way are from Anthropologie Nature table range)
This post contains Amazon affiliate links for your convenience. Click here to see my disclosure policy.
What you need to make personalized placemats
- Old cork table Mats/Placemats - you may have some already that need revamping, or you could pick some up really cheap from a thrift store. You could even make your own from cork tiles.
- Maps - If you don't have a map habit like mine, no fear there are lots of other ways you can get maps of your favorite cities. You can download royalty-free maps from sites like Pictureboxblue, or buy map wrapping paper online. I have a collection of wonderful free vintage maps on Pillarboxblue you can use too!
- Decoupage glue such as Mod Podge
- Heat resistant and waterproof lacquer or varnish.
- Rotary cutter, cutting mat or scissors, rolling pin or wallpaper roller, & ruler.
How to Make decoupaged Personalized placemats
- Clean your table mats/placemats and prime them by coating them in a diluted 50/50 glue to water mixture. This will help the maps adhere better.
- While waiting for the priming mixture to dry, cut out your maps to size. I did this by simply placing my table mat on top of the map and cutting round with a rotary cutter.
3. Next, when the primer coat is dry apply a coat of glue to the table mat, and another one to the wrong side of the map.
Carefully place your map on top of the mat. To eliminate air bubbles, roll over the top of the map whilst sticking it down with a rolling pin or wallpaper roller. You could also use a ruler to squeeze out any air bubbles.
4. Whilst I'm waiting for the maps to adhere to the table mats I usually place them under a weighted object such as a heavy book.
5. Finally, when fully adhered all you need to do is to varnish your placemats. I applied 3 coats of varnish, letting each one dry thoroughly in between.
That's it, I told you it was really easy!
The City Maps I used for my Personalized placemats
The maps I used were from some of my favourite European cities, but I have loads more favourites I just need more maps.
- LONDON Map: I used to live and work in London and still visit regularly. There is so much to see and do in the city I never tire of it.
- PARIS Map: A beautiful city. I first visited relatives there as a child and more recently went with friends.
- STOCKHOLM: It's a fabulous city surrounded by water and has a lovely chilled out Scandi vibe.
- BARCELONA: A city and beach all in one with great tapas and all that inspiring Gaudi architecture!
- BUDAPEST: I visited for the first time last year, and not only was it a beautiful city full of history but it also had a unique party atmosphere and is very cheap.
Which are your favorite cities?
Recently, I made some gorgeous paper angel wings decor for bedroom out of old road maps. I think a map of Los Angeles would be perfect for this project.
There is a fabulous collection of vintage New York maps here that are free to download. I think these would make gorgeous city table mats.
Maps aren't the only things I use to upcycle old placemats. I've also made a set of kitchen patent placemats. There are many more ideas for making placemats here.
If you liked this post you might want to check out some of my other popular map crafts using city and road maps.
- Repurposed Wood Map Ornaments
- Personalised Map Chairs
- Map Luminary Bags
- Map Christmas Crackers
- Beautiful Map Roses
Map Personalized Placemats
Use city maps from your travels to make unique upcycled personalized placemats for your table.
Materials
- Old placemats / tablemats or cork tiles
- City Maps
- Mod Podge
Instructions
- clean mats
- Cut Maps to size
- Decoupage maps to mat
- Seal mats
Notes
For a collection of free vintage maps for this product visit here.
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
What a fun project and great way to preserve memories of places visited in the past. The placemats turned out lovely! My dad use to have a ton of maps, I wish that I had thought to save them.
Thank you, they are fun to look at. I make a new one every time we visit a new city.
I was just talking about how maps have become obsolete now that most people have map
Apps on their phone. Love adding new life to something old. Great idea!
Thank you so much. Yes, there is something lovely and nostalgic about old maps.
Those are such cute placemats and I love the chameleon plates too. Pinned.
Thank you,the plates are a favourite of mine they are from Anthropologie.
I absolutely love these! Thanks for sharing on To Grandma's House We Go!
Thank you, Chas.
I love maps!!!Lovely plates with frog also!!!
Thank you, the plates are my favourite too they are from Anthropologie.
I LOVE this idea so much! Now I just need to find some old placemats to cover! 🙂 Lisa
Thanks, you can always use cork tiles.
Beautiful job! Did you just glue on top of the old mat without sanding first? And you did the priming with the Mod Podge/PVA glue? Do you think yacht varnish gives a better finish than spray lacquer? Apologies for so many questions - I've just acquired a massive collection of maps and there's so much I want to do with them! My first picture frame didn't work as well as I hoped 🙁
Thanks!!
I just glued over the old mat but primed first with glue. I don't think there is much difference between yacht varnish and spray lacquer, just make sure it's a crystal clear varnish. I do love my mat table maps they are great to look at whilst at the table.
Thanks! I was a bit worried about leaving brush strokes with the yacht varnish, so that's why i was wondering about a spray finish. I think I saw someone use a some kind of transparent adhesive sheet but i fear that wouldn't be as strong as varnish. More susceptible to scratches and subsequent water damage to the paper. I hadn't thought to use glue as primer so that's a great tip!
Have to say that I absolutely LOVE the dishes pictured! Where might I find them to purchase?
You are my feature for Tonight's Talk of the Town Link Party #20 Thank you for linking up with us! We are live at 8pm EST.
Julie @ Love My Simple Home
Thank you so much look forward to seeing it !
Love this blog. Thanks for sharing. And where did you get those plates. Absolutely cool.
Thank you ! The plates are from anthropologie.
I have loads of old maps waiting to be used for something, this is a lovely idea.
Can you remember what varnish you used? I'd hate to stick my plates to my lovely new map table mats!
Thank you ! I used some old yaught varnish, I had left over from another project but I can't remember the brand, sorry ! If you go yo the DIY, just pick a waterproof clear varnish and it should work fine.
What a great project! Thank you so much for sharing over at Celebrate Your Story! This will be one of our featured posts from Celebrate and Decorate this coming Monday! I hope it sends some more traffic your way. I hope you stop by a the party again this Monday evening at 8:00 EST.
Thank you ! Look forward to seeing it.
These are so much fun! I definitely need to give this a try sometime!
Thank you ! They are really easy to do for great results.
What a great way to upcycle old placemats! And using maps from your favourite cities makes them even more special! Thanks for sharing it on Dishing It & Digging It. And you know what? We loved them so much, you're being featured on Sunday's party!
That's great thank you, looking forward to seeing the feature.