Make Your Own SCRATCH OFF MAP

I really like scratch off maps (even though I have not traveled that much) and I have one of the world to scratch every country I visit, but I started to wish I could make my own maps of this style and start with my country. I think that by doing so I learned a little more about geography (I remembered things that I had studied in school) and I felt more pleasure in scratching the places that I have visited on this map than what I felt with the map that I had bought.

• Adhesive bond paper
• Cardboard
• Transparent adhesive vinyl
• Butter paper
• Acrylic paint (I only used black but any color can be used)
• Liquid dish soap
• Brushes
• Pair of scissors
• Cutter
• Ruler
• Fineliner
• Marker to write on black
• Pencil (5b, 6b, 7b or 8b)
• Pencil (4h or 2h)
• Maskin
• Coin (for scratching)

Thanks to the Internet, we currently have millions of images at our disposal and we can find maps that we like among them.

In my case, I decided to use some Freepik vectors of maps of Colombia, but I wanted to combine things from several of them and improve some other details so I ended up editing the map in Illustrator.

Attached you can find this map in PDF so that you can print it and feel like visiting my country 😁

These sheets were printed on adhesive paper so that it was easy to stick them to the cardboard

To stick the map to the cardboard, the first thing I did was to peel off a corner of the adhesive paper and fold the paper on the back of it. Then I placed the map in the position I wanted it on the cardboard and add some pressure on that corner. Little by little I removed the paper from the back of the adhesive paper and at the same time I was pressing on the map to stick it to the cardboard.

I covered the map with adhesive vinyl and for this, I did the same procedure as with the adhesive bond:

I separated a corner of the adhesive vinyl and the paper that protects it, placed it in the position that I wanted it on the map, and little by little I was removing the paper on the back while pressing on the vinyl to stick it to the map.

(I cut the vinyl slightly larger than the map so that if it moved a bit, there would be no missing spots left to cover)

I put butter paper on the map, fold the edges and put some tape so it wouldn't move.

With the pencil "b" (b6, b7, b8 or similar) copy the map on the back of the butter paper.

In this map, I decided that I wanted it to have a black border, without it being scratchable, so the first thing I did was cover with masking tape the details that I did not want to cover with paint.

For the part to be scratched off, you should combine dish soap with acrylic paint in equal parts. Then with a brush, the desired part is covered (in my case I covered Colombia) and I let it dry for several hours.

Cover the map again with the butter paper and this time with the 2h or 4h pencil, draw the divisions of the map and the details to be copied.

With a marker that marks over black, I copied the divisions and the name of Colombia.

If you don't have this type of marker, you can use white paint with a very thin brush.

The map is ready to be used 😊

I hope one day to scratch it all off. 😁✈️