The story of a map...

Once upon a time there was a pirate, no I think it was a ninja, noooo maybe it was a knight. Anyway the pirate-ninja-knight would often go on adventures, sailing the high seas, battling baddies, slaying dragons and hunting for treasure. The pirate-ninja-knight would never leave home without his sword and map, the problem was his map was forever getting ripped and damaged and slightly singed by dragon breath.

The pirate-ninja-knight mommy thought about making a more durable map, she suggested a plastic coated map but the pirate-ninja-knight scoffed in her face, as if pirate-ninja-knight's used plastic maps. So the mommy pirate-ninja-knight had another think and decided that what was needed was a cloth map. Something durable, believable and could be washed if the pirate-ninja-knight fell in a swamp on his adventures.

So, the mommy pirate-ninja-knight got to work, first she aged some paper using a combined technique of coffee stains, tea stains and lighter flames. To get a really good ancient look she stained the paper three times, leaving it to dry each time. Then she hand drew the different parts of the map and scanned them into her computer along with a scanned copy of the aged paper. Next she spent several hours conjuring up some Photoshop magic putting the map together and adding the colour. She deliberated for sometime about labelling the islands and other parts of the map but decided against it. She thought (and rightly so, if you don't mind me butting in) that the map should be left blank of names so that the pirate-ninja-knight could make up his own names and that if a copy of the map should fall into non English speaking pirate-ninja-knight's they would be able to use it too.

Once the drawing of the map was finished it was printed out with eco-friendly inks on a nice sturdy linen cotton fabric. But then a problem! the fabric, lovely as it was, was prone to fraying, it is bad enough that the islands were shrinking due to global warming never mind map fraying. So, the mommy pirate-ninja-knight rustled up some anti-fray to coat the edges of the map with and rigged up a special map drying rack. Once the map was dry she set to and hand stitched a ribbon to the map so it could be rolled up and tied when not being used.

The map was such a big hit with the pirate-ninja-knight and his friends that the mommy pirate-ninja-knight didn't think it was fair that only one pirate-ninja-knight should have a map so she got cracking and made lots of them.

If you would like a copy of the map for you little pirate-ninja-knight then you can get one by clicking on any of the words map in the story.

And you don't have to take the word of the mommy-ninja-pirate that they are great, listen to what the little  treasure hunters around the of the world have to say.....

"I love my pirate map because it came with treasure"  

                                                           Kanai (6) Texas

 "We had the boat, the eye patch and the cutlass; all we needed was a real treasure map and now we have one"  

                                                            H & N (6 & 8) Japan
                                                       

"Me and my sister use my map to help us find pirate treasure. We love it!"                                                

                                                            George (5) Lancashire, UK
                                                       

"My little pirates have had many happy hours of treasure hunting with this map. It is a wonderful idea for imaginative play, well made and a great addition to their dressing up box" 

                                                             Lesley Robertson, Manchester
                                                
And, because now you know how much time and effort went into creating this very special map and because the mommy pirate-ninja-knight thinks you are lovely, she is offering a 10% discount until the end of the month. Just put pirateninjaknight into the coupon code box when you check out.

The End