The printable outside of the Marauder's Map |
These maps were made to be used in activities and thus contained an actual map of the location of the party.
What your need:
A printer (preferably colour and laser jet; cannot be an ink printer)
Knowledge of the locations of rooms in your home or location of your party, including closets etc. A blueprint of your house/location of party could be useful here, too
FOR STAINING:
Tea
15x10x1 pan (aka jelly-roll pan/cookie sheet)
See the staining your paper tutorial I have provided for more detailed instructions
First, I have provided the outside of your map for you below above, just under the first picture. If you fold the ends in to the center, you will get a map that looks similar to the picture at the top, however, it will be white for now.
But you don't need to print it just yet. First, you'll need to create a map of your house/the location of the party. The map should be in landscape format. There are several ways to do this depending on your resources and computer skills:
- Use Photoshop or a similar program (GIMP is a free alternative to Photoshop and will even open Photoshop files for editing. It doesn't have all the options of Photoshop and it's not as user-friendly, but if you don't want to spend the money it's a good option) create a simple map of the rooms in your house/location of party. This is usually achieved through simple squares and lines
- Use the "Paint" program that comes with most Windows computers (I'm not a Mac user and can't say for sure if there's a similar program for that) and create a simple map of the rooms in your house/location of party
- Draw a map of your house/location of party on a piece of paper and scan it into your computer
- Draw a map of your house/location of party, take a picture of it in good lighting, and load it onto your computer
- Draw a map of your house/location of party on each Marauder's Map after printing and staining it
Any of those options would work. I chose #1 because I have Photoshop and am rather good with computers.
You may want to make some changes in how you create the map of your house, i.e. the main alterations we made were:
You may want to make some changes in how you create the map of your house, i.e. the main alterations we made were:
- We labelled everything 'magical'-sounding names (e.g. closets were 'broom cupboards'. A list of possible names will be provided below)
- We left out a bathroom on the main floor to be the 'Room of Requirement', because the Room does not show up on the Marauder's Map, so naturally it would not show up on ours
If you would like to give the rooms in your home more 'magical'-sounding names, a list of possible alternatives is below: (some things are repeated i.e. a bedroom could be the 'Divination Classroom', or your attic could be the Divination classroom)
A tree, especially a Willow tree – Whomping Willow
Any outdoor water source – Black Lake
Attic – Divination Classroom
Basement – Dungeons, Underground, Snape’s Storage Rooms, Potions Classroom
Bathroom – Moaning Myrtle’s Lavatory, Entrance to the Ministry of Magic, the Loo
Bedrooms – Astronomy Tower, Arithmancy Classroom, any sort of classroom name including Transfiguration, Charms, Muggle Studies, Divination, etc.
Closet – Broom Cupboard
Dining Room – Great Hall
Forest – Forbidden Forest
Furnace Room – Floo Network
Garden – Hagrid’s Pumpkin Patch
Greenhouse – Herbology Classroom
Hallways – Entrance Hall, 7th Floor Corridor, 3rd Floor Corridor
Kitchen – Hogwarts Kitchens
Living Room – Common Rooms, Dormitories (could call it the ‘Hufflepuff Dormitories’, or substitute the word ‘Hufflepuff’ for Gryffindor, Slytherin, or Ravenclaw)
Master Bedroom – Dumbledore’s Office/Headmaster’s Office
Offices – Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor’s Office, Unused Classroom
Shed – Shrieking Shack, Broom Shed
Stairs – Grand Staircase, 3rd Floor Corridor
If you have any other suggestions, feel free to comment and I'll add them!
When you have finished creating and labelling your map, print them out so that the picture at the top is on one side of the paper and your map is on the other. You can fold it in now, but it's easier to just wait.
Now you're going to stain the paper, and the instructions can be found in my other post, The Letters/Invitations--How to Stain Your Paper Tutorial. Stain all of your maps, flatten them, and then fold the edges in and you will have a lovely map that looks similar to this:
This map went over really well, and many of my friends now display it in their bedrooms! It's such a simple craft but really looks fantastic when it's finished.