DIY Painted Doormat #2

I've got the DIY bug again. I think after spending so long prepping and painting the outside of our house I needed a few quick 1-night projects to re-set my creative self.

If you don't quite share Dave and I's sense of humour - the saying on this mat is super ironic, both in the fact that 'thug life' aint pretty, and also that we are pretty much living the complete opposite of a 'thug life'. Whatever that means! Anyway, we think it's hilarious.

So this DIY went pretty much the same as the first doormat. First I taped some paper together to get the size of the doormat. Since I needed to draw a circle I wanted to get as much of the height in as possible. I couldn't find a plate big enough to trace so I did the old 'tie a piece of string to a pencil and hold it in the middle of the paper and hope to get an approximate circle' trick. It worked surprisingly well, even though the design doesn't call for it to be super accurate.

Then I drew out my stencil on the paper, making sure the lines were thick enough. I didn't end up doing the inside bits of the letters because it would be way too much effort and you can read the writing perfectly fine without them. 

To make it easy on myself, I coloured in the bits I needed to cut out.

I used a craft knife to cut out the stencil, I had to snap off the blade halfway through because it was getting blunt. Did you know about that trick? It's the best way to get a sharp edge if things start ripping a bit. 

Once the stencil was cut out, I aligned it and then used my sewing pins to hold down the edges. This stencil needed loads because of all the flimsy leaves. 

Then I used the same paint and paintbrush as last time to dab on the paint and ta-dah! A completed doormat. 

The time taken on one of these mats is approx:

30-45 min to draw up the stencil
30-45 min to cut out the stencil
20 min to paint the design onto the mat

Total time: 1.5-2 hours. Pretty achievable for a unique piece of decor! If you make your own, please let me know - I would love to see it!

Happy crafting!
xx