happy birthday to me and a personalized map gift

Happy Valentine’s Day! I’m reluctantly celebrating by 31st birthday today. I don’t think I mind the age part, must be that I still haven’t gotten over being born on this holiday 😉 We are keeping it low key just like I want it. Just a nice evening with the hubby, the mutts, sushi take out and a nice bottle of wine to celebrate.

I haven’t bought the Ray a Valentine’s gift in years but I figured this year would be as good as any to change that. I bought them last month and was so excited about how they came out that I gave them to him weeks ago. I suck at keeping gifts a secret 🙂

I’ve been eyeing personalized maps from studiokmo on Etsy for a long time. Look at these amazing mapcuts and hand drawn maps. I love the intricacy of them. I’m a sucker for maps.

Karen (the artist behind the shop) added original artist trading cards to her listings. These detailed little 2 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ original drawings can be customized to any location. Each is an original drawing and only $22.00. That is a steal for great custom art. I ended up ordering 4 – one for where Ray was born, one from where we were married and then the two homes we have lived in together.

This is where Ray was born in Cienfuegos, Cuba. The white area n this one is land. On the land, the lines represent structures. His family home is the second one from the point. The rest of the lines represent the ocean. They lived on a penninsula right on the water until he came to the U.S.

This is our first place together. We lived in sin for a few years before getting married. I blurred out our address with hearts (since it is Valentine’s Day). In this one the lines represent houses/structures and the white are streets.

This is where we got married – the Red Fish Grill in Miami. Since I don’t care if you stalk our wedding location you’ll see the address is shown. I love that each of these is personalized. In this one the lines are the ocean and a few buildings inland, and the white represents the land.

And this is our current home and neighborhood. Blurred out for safety again with hearts. I don’t want anyone coming over trying to steal my craft room 😉


Karen was awesome to work with. If you like these, check out her shop – you will not be disappointed. I also ordered the mats for these and will frame them in the coming months. She has frames available but I’m still working through how I will display them so I didn’t want to commit to them yet. Best of all, Ray loved them too 🙂

Hope you have a wonderful day celebrating with your loved ones!

PS – I was not compensated in any way for this post. I just liked her shop and her art and felt she needed a little love.