Made It: A Little Paint Always Helps

Hello! We inherited a rather drab, dark blue doormat when we moved into our house. It had been left on the front porch, but we rarely use the front door (it's rather a pain to open and shut), so eventually the doormat made its way to the deck. Much handier there during gardening months, but it was still drab.

Of course, I could have easily purchased a new doormat, but recently it hit me: why not try dressing up the one I have with a little paint? I had DecoArt's weather and water resistant Patio Paints  and plenty of stencils on hand, so I figured I could easily improve the appearance of the doormat. 

And that I did:

Materials used:

A vintage (1977) stencil set and DecoArt's Patio Paints in Geranium Red and Cloud White. I chose these two colors because a. red and white on a blue background seems like a nice, summery color scheme and b. I had bigger bottles of these colors than I do the other colors of Patio Paints that I own. 

And I needed a fair amount of paint to fill in the stencils, as the numbers are about 4" high and up to around 3" in length (the bottom part of the number 2). 

The doormat has a coarse weave, which also contributed to the amount of paint I had to use. I applied two thick coats to get the coverage I wanted. Although it wasn't hard to do the painting, I was glad I had chosen a simple design (numbers that represent our house address.) I had to really work the paint in! But if I feel like it, I can always add a border later. 

So now you know (if you didn't already) - a little paint always helps! You may not have a drab doormat that needs some improving, but you might find something else around your house that does!