Back in 2019, I took my son Rowan (6 at the time) for his first camping trip to Hanging Rock State Park. When we were at the visitor center, the park ranger told us about the NC Parks Passport, a booklet where you can get a stamp from each park you visit, and there are rewards for hitting milestones (10, 20, 30, 40). We did 5 parks in 2019, all within a short driving distance from home, plus a few that were a short drive from a summer beach vacation. In 2020 we really stepped up our game. Rowan came to the conclusion that long road trips are pretty easy, and he started really wanting to do a lot of parks. We visited added 13 parks and got 1 stamp for the Mountains-to-Sea trail in 2020, bringing our total to 19. He just turned 8, and we have an ambitious plan to get to rest of the parks this year (41 total), including a road trip for his spring break to do 9 parks in 5 days on the eastern side of the state.
So this project was really to keep him excited about finishing our goal. Using Inkscape, I laid out all the parks on a state map with county lines, and added park labels, and engraved it using my laser. After engraving, I made a simple frame out of cherry to put it in, and finished it with some danish oil. With the frame, it's about 11"x22"
The version pictured here is not the version I made my son. For his I used the official NC Parks logo, which is copyrighted (I emailed them to see if they had a crafters license or something similar- they don't) so I won't share the pictures here. This is one of a few more I'm making to put up on etsy once the finish cures just to gauge any interest. They were fun to build, although frames are always a bit of a pain!
So this project was really to keep him excited about finishing our goal. Using Inkscape, I laid out all the parks on a state map with county lines, and added park labels, and engraved it using my laser. After engraving, I made a simple frame out of cherry to put it in, and finished it with some danish oil. With the frame, it's about 11"x22"
The version pictured here is not the version I made my son. For his I used the official NC Parks logo, which is copyrighted (I emailed them to see if they had a crafters license or something similar- they don't) so I won't share the pictures here. This is one of a few more I'm making to put up on etsy once the finish cures just to gauge any interest. They were fun to build, although frames are always a bit of a pain!