Being in the stationery business has made me an avid lover of postage stamps. One might even call me a philatelist. Since I assist many of my customers with wedding postage, I’m especially fond of love stamps.

We used a combination of vintage love stamps on my sister Ali’s wedding invitations this year. I was smitten. While researching postage stamps on eBay, I came across this retailer of postmarked vintage love stamps. The price was almost nil (it is a used stamp after all), but I was intrigued. There’s something romantic about postmarked stamps, isn’t there? After my stamps arrived, it was time to get crafty. And so I created…. a map of love!

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First, I painted my 20 x 36 canvas with blue acrylic paint.

Next, I freehanded a map of the U.S. in pencil. (Here’s a great printable to work from; just be sure to scale it to your canvas.)

Paint the canvas section by section with a thin layer of mod podge. Layer the stamps inside the map. Once completely filled in, paint the entire canvas with 2 layers of mod podge on top of the stamps. This will leave you with a shiny, lacquered finish. (If you aren’t into the shine, you can always use matte mod podge.)

Voila: a map of love (stamps that is).

The stamps came in packs of 150. I ordered 3 of them but didn’t use them all, but it gave me a wider variety so nothing the same was next to each other. You could also try this project with different stamps like ones from a specific country or year, animals, air mail — there are tons of options!