Quick & Simple Upcycle Project - Suitcase with Vintage Maps

Recently at a vintage fair I bought a little suitcase - mostly for the contents (more of that another time) but also because even if a bit battered it's quite cute.  I haven't got a completely "before" pic.  It did have quite a lot of paint on it and it wasn't till I got it all off that I thought to take the first pic.

Suitcase - bottom

The inside was completely grotty and I have taken a photo of those stained wrinkly insides ...

stained and grotty insides

So having got the paint off the outside and cleaned the suitcase up - mostly with a cloth and hot soapy water I took out all the horrid stained paper insides which were beginning to peel off anyway.  Any bits that remained stuck, I moistened with a damp cloth then scraped them off and gave the whole inside a good wipe out.  Then I left it to dry.

Vintage map interior

A vintage map interior would be just the job, I thought.  Looking through my map collection, Bartholomew's Firth of Clyde seemed to fit the bill nicely.  I cut the map to fit.  One piece was enough for the lid but the base needed 4 pieces - 3 for the two sides and front and one for the bottom and back.  I had to join one piece on one side mainly to get the bits of map I thought would look best - they don't all join together mapwise but they look reasonably coherent.  
 

new vintage map insides

Of course you could have all completely different map pieces if you wanted.

 

I used some new glue that I got the same day as the suitcase.  It had been recommended.  I opened it and was immensely impressed with the design.  In the centre of the jar was a special place for a mini glue brush - how cool is that!  I used it to glue my map pieces in place and it was excellent.  Here's the finished product ...

Upcycled suitcase with vintage maps

I did it all one evening, let it dry overnight and next day it was ready to use.