DIY doormat

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DIY Halloween doormat

In our household I am not the decorative type. I am a plain type when it comes to decorations. I am easy to please in that department. My wife has been wanting to change up our doormat. In my opinion it does what it is meant to do. It allows us and visitors to wipe and clean our feet before entering our house. So why should we change it?

Well she enlightened me to the benefits of changing out our door mat. She wanted to try a DIY doormat to match the corresponding holiday. We are close to Halloween so we decided to design and make a DIY halloween doormat.

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Supplies for a diy doormat

The supplies needed for this craft are simple.

You need a blank doormat. My 1st one was cheaply made. Don’t go broke with this but don’t be too cheap also. My cheap mat transferred some type of glue to my iron. It wasn’t fun to clean.

You need an iron or heat press to apply your stencil material. An iron will probably work better for this as you heat press would be difficult to use because of the large size of your doormat.

You need your design in a stencil form. There are many ways to go about this. I chose to use freezer paper. It is difficult to use because it is thin and tears easily. The reason I like to use it is because of the cost. I bought a huge roll for a little less than $5.00 and I am currently using that same roll. Saving money is a big motivator for me.

If you are designing your own stencil you need a cutter like the Cricut or silhouette to get the job done. I currently use the cricut explore one. I want to upgrade to the Cricut maker and I will soon. To me the Explore one has been cutting everything I needed to cut flawlessly. Its just hard to justify the purchase when I’m happy with the machine I have.

Some type of paint to spray in to your stencil designs. I came across a liquid rubber in a can called flex seal. It comes in black white and gray. I like this stuff because it dries in a hard rubber and your mat is typically outdoors exposed to the elements. So the rubber would stand up better to the weather than regular paint. It is a litte more costly though.

Designing your doormat

I needed to make my first mat with a simple Halloween design. If you have ever read or blog before you should know I use CorelDraw to do my designing. In my blog post jfamilycrafters.com/graphic-t-shirts/ I write about CorelDraw and other programs out there. I personally like and use CorelDraw. Its what I use at work and home. So I am most familiar with it. You can use what you know. There are several programs available.

Considered by many to be the holy grail of design software is a program called.  Photo shop. It is a great program to use. It can be costly though. If price isn’t an issue, go for it. You won’t be disappointed.
There are others programs out there like Illustrator and paint shop pro. There are also some free programs out there like Gravit Designer, Vectr, SVG-Edit and Inkscape.

Planning your layout of your DIY Mat

One of my most favorite quotes of all times is accredited to Benjamin Franklin. It says “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” The reason I love this and its meaning is simple. In life as well as blogging you need to plan your life. You can’t live your life by sliding by on the seat of your pants. A well thought out plan will make everything more simple when it comes to doing this craft. Plan your design and layout of your DIY halloween doormat.

Cutting time

When you finish designing it is time to cut your design. If you are using freezer paper and cutting with the cricut explore you can use setting for parchment in the custom setup. If you are using a maker it has a freezer paper setting to make your life a breeze.  When using freezer paper make sure you place the shiny side down and set it to cut right side.  Do not mirror your image with the freezer paper.  The shiny side has a little waxy film which helps give it a temporary hold when you place it on your door mat after weeding.

Start your cutting and babysit your machine to make sure it cuts as you designed.  Once your design is cut be careful when taking your freezer paper off of your cutting mat. It can rip very easily. Take your time and all should go well in removing you DIY halloween doormat design.

 

Doormat Preparation

 

Its time to apply the freezer paper to the mat.  Place your design in the center of  your mat and make sure your iron is set to cotton.  Start ironing on one corner of your design and slowly moving over your design to make sure it is flat on all side.  Don’t stay in one place too long as you could burn your design.  You also don’t want to leave space that allows your paint to bleed through underneath.  Double check all of your work and make sure everything is tacked down so you can start the painting process.

 

Painting your DIY Halloween Doormat

Like I mentioned above I used a product called flex seal as my paint.  It is a liquid rubber spray that goes on as liquid but dries into a hard rubberized layer.  But be careful if you use this as it comes out fast,  You want to make sure you do a light sweeping spray when applying it.  After you apply your paint.  Make sure you allow it to somewhat dry before you remove the freezer paper.  You want it to have a tacky feel to it.  After you remove the freezer paper allow it to completely dry for 24 hours.  Then you are free to place it outside in time for Halloween.