Catching up with my cross stitch map

Every day when I am at my desk I sit underneath my cross stitch map. I purchased this map some time ago so I'm not sure if it's still available, but it's made by Suck UK and it's the larger size. It's basically a large piece of stiff cross stitch fabric printed with a world map. The intention is that that you can fill in the places that you've visited by filling them in with cross stitch or other embroidery.

Of course, with 70% or so of the Earth being covered by water, this does leave quite a lot of blank space. There are also some very large countries that I'm unlikely to visit (Russia, Antarctica, quite a lot of Africa) so when you start to fill it out you soon realise that it's going to look rather empty. 

I decided to take a creative approach to the cross stitch, so as well as filling in the countries that I've travelled to I also wanted to fill in the blank spaces with a montage of travel related images along with areas of blue for the sea. I added a large title to the top as well. 

Some of the motifs I've designed myself, others I've found online or in my cross stitch pattern books.

The trouble is that I've not updated the map in some time. There are some countries that I've not yet filled in (including China - that will take up a bit of space!). I've also decided to completely fill out the US and Canada instead of just the states that I've visited, just to add a bit more green to the map. I'd like to fill out lots more of the background too, even if I just mark out some space for boxes to be filled in at a later date.

I'm thinking about creating a stronger outline for the countries so that they are more distinct from the background. I have some metallic thread, so that may work for this. I also have a multitude of beads and sequins in my stash that I could use to add a bit of extra interest.

So that's going to be my next long-term crafting project. The photo above is my starting point, let's see how much better I can make it look!