DIY Doormat

When I saw this custom doormat project on MarthaStewart.com I knew I wanted to make one for our house.  I picked up all the materials I needed to make it during a spontaneous road trip with Bonnie and Melissa back in December.  We had planned to go to a holiday decorating class at Miller Farms, but the owner had to cancel at the last minute to attend her grandchild's birth.  Good excuse, no?  So we went to Ikea instead :)

All you need is:

• Plain, stiff-fibered doormat - I got this one from Ikea for only $8.99.  
• Various sizes of blue painter's tape - this will depend on how big your letters and rug are.  I picked up 1, 2, and 3 inch wide rolls.  
• House numbers in whatever style matches you - I got mine at Lowe's for $1.86 each.
• Exterior spray paint in a color of your choice - my choice was chocolate brown to match my front door and shutters
• Ruler or measuring tape

Once I had all my materials ready and the mat on a drop cloth, I got started.  First, I taped the screw holes on the numbers to block the paint from going through to the rug.  Then I laid them out and used my ruler to center them on the rug.

Once they were centered and taped down, I used the 3 inch painter's tape to create a border around them.  I eyeballed the placement of the first side, and then used the outside measurement to line up the 3 other sides.  I believe the outside edge of the tape was 5 inches from the edge of the rug all the way around.

 The 3 inch tape didn't stick very well to the rug so I used some objects to anchor the corners.  It was pretty windy yesterday so that didn't help.  

Then I used the 2 inch tape to create another border, leaving 1 1/2 inches between the outside edge of the tape and the edge of the rug.

I ran the tape all the way to the edge of the rug on this border to create cute painted corners on the finished product.  It also prevented the tape from flying around like the inner border!  :)

After some re-measuring and tweaking, I painted!

I moved around my anchors (tape rolls and my cute pink tape measure) as I painted but kept them anchoring the corners of that border to avoid a disaster.

Remove the tape, and voila!  A DIY personalized doormat!  I love this!

Thank you, Martha.