Introduction

Welcome to the Red Thread Maps Blog! I’m Hendrika (Heni), a very lucky mom to my twin daughters from China, who are the inspiration for all of my work. I decided to start up this blog to show a little more about my work and family than can be found on my main website, Redthreadmaps.com.
Here I will pick different topics and places to focus on weekly, such as different cities, provinces and countries that may be of interest to adoptive and multicultural families; and will also highlight my latest map works and designs. And I may even include some photos and tales of my own family.

Currently I have two websites: www.Redthreadmaps.com – where I feature birth country, province and orphanage location maps and map gifts of interest to adoptive families; and www.Henimage.com which showcases my other graphic design work on a variety of t-shirts and gifts.

My map work is truly a labor of love – something I began years ago to show my daughters their hometown and connection to their home province in China, which has blossomed now into a business where I create unique personalized maps and gifts for other adoptive families. Each of my original maps takes between 100 and 200 plus hours to create, and each begins with a hand-rendering in ink!

One series of my work features China provincial orphanage location maps – showing the general locations of orphanages that participate in international adoptions. Many provinces are now completed, with more being added as I get them done. I also have China and South Korea country maps that can highlight your and your child’s journey. I am working on more countries as well.

I hope you will enjoy visiting here and reading my little blurbs…