How To Make A Latitude/Longitude Sign

Don’t ask me why – I’m a weirdo – but I’m fascinated by geography and the fact that every place on earth has a specific location. I have wanted to incorporate our latitude and longitude into the house forever, and I also had a bit of a craving for something chevron, so using paint and supplies I already had in my garage, I made this little number:

Here’s how you can make a chevron latitude/longitude sign too.

*First up, find your geographical location – there are a bunch of sites online where you enter your address and it automatically figures your latitude and longitude for you. I used itouchmap.com.
You can also enter a latitude and longitude and the site will give you the coordinating address, which is exactly why you won’t see my sign in full in this blog post. I hope all you stalkers out there understand 🙂

*Prime and paint a board. 
(This is a great use of a scrap piece of wood – I used one from my board and batten project – or even a leftover cabinet door if you’ve recently jumped on the open shelving trend in your kitchen!)

*Next up, print out a chevron template, tape it to the board and transfer the pattern onto the wood by tracing with a ballpoint pen, which leaves an indentation that is visible. Billie Monster has a few variations on a printable chevron stencil (the one I used is from an unknown source.)
(I learned the ballpoint pen transfer method from Jaime and I like it better than the chalk method I used for my Destinations Sign.)

*Use painter’s tape to create the chevron pattern   Overlap the tape and then trim it with a blade to get nice straight corners.
(I find Frog Tape to have much less bleed-through than the blue tape.)

*Paint the whole board, right over the tape, with a second color. Let dry and then give it another coat. Remove the tape while the paint is still wet.

*After removing the tape, gently sand down any raised lines from the layers of paint.

*Screw two hooks on the back for hanging. You can find a box of these hooks at your local hardware store.
(If I was making this sign for someone else I would paint the back – a nicer finished product. For myself – I’m not too fussy!)

If you like the idea of displaying your latitude & longitude in your home or on your person, here are some more fun ideas (intentionally leaving out Angelina Jolie’s tatts, even though I appreciate the maternal sentiment 🙂

Latitude and longitude painted onto garage or basement steps. I had considering doing L&L when I painted the stairs in our garage last summer.

Latitude and longitude on a simple pillow. {This gorgeous photo has long been in my inspiration files!}

Jewelry of a special geographic location (the place you were married? A child was born? Your home?) There are tons of jewelry options out there but here are a few of my faves:

And last but not least, Mandi’s grouping of LL Bean signs of all the places her family has lived – you must check this one out!

Thanks for visiting and hope you are enjoying this fine spring day!

I’m linking up to these great blogs:

Just A Girl