DIY Painted Doormat

Surprise! It's not a book review or child update! Enjoy!

First off - The saying on this doormat is meant to be a funny take on 'welcome home' - no offence intended!

We are currently about 75% done painting the exterior of our house (slow progress but we are getting there!) and of course we painted the front first so it looks finished from the street!

To go along with the newly painted entrance way, we decided to get a new door mat. I couldn't find any I liked that didn't cost upwards of $30 so I found a plain coir (coconut fibre) door mat from Briscoes (not sponsored) and guess what! They were on sale! I got one for the front door and one for the back.

I drew inspiration from dontbeadoormat for the text and found a font that I liked. Then, since I'm weird, I spent 45 minutes drawing it out onto 3 pieces of a4 paper taped together. In my defense the font didn't get big enough to print it out.

Then I used my craft knife to cut around the words to create my stencil.
*Tip - you can use the mat as the cutting surface.

Then I took the mat and stencil out to Dave's shed for him to spray paint since I have a track record of blurred edges. He was busy making way cooler stuff so it got put on the backburner for the night. So I grabbed it back the next day and decided to tackle it with a paintbrush and some textile paint (any paint should work though).

Since the stencil was on thin printer paper, the skinny bits were threatening to ruin the stencil if they flipped up so I came up with the brilliant idea of using sewing pins to hold it into place.

Then I just took a largeish art brush and the black paint and started dabbing (as opposed to doing strokes). I went over it a couple of times being quite generous with the paint.

Then I took out the pins, carefully removed the stencil and put it somewhere safe to dry, then took a look at the new mat.

I was happy with the amount of paint and the edges look nice and sharp so I called it done! Obviously allow it to dry before using it unless you want some interesting footprints all over the floor. (Jif will get it off wooden floors by the way).

Then just put it at the front door and enjoy the great feeling when you are greeted by such a nice entrance way.

Stay tuned for the back door mat - coming soon!