Spring Front Door Mat Re-Do {Stencil Tutorial with the Silhouette}

I was thrilled to get to be one of the guest bloggers over at the Silhouette School Blog recently, while Melissa attended the SNAP Conference for Bloggers. I love Melissa's tutorials and know they have helped me a lot when I have questions about my Silhouette, so if you haven't ever been over to her site, go check out all of her amazing tips and tricks she shares! I have a bit of an obsession with my Silhouette machines and have a secret worry...I'm always afraid that the inside of my house looks like vinyl threw up all over it! Ha! So, someone please tell me if it ever looks that way. hahaha

For today's post I want to share with you, how I took my old front porch rug (that I bought last spring), and used my Silhouette to redesign it, and to give it new life! You don't have to go buy a new one each year...just spend a little time and creativity with what you've got. It's so much fun and I love the way mine came out!

First thing I did was to choose the colors I wanted on my "new" rug/mat. This is what my front door mat looked like after the winter and what I started with:

Not so cute and fun anymore...lol. But...I liked the same colors, (AND I already had similar colors in my paint stock here at home) so I stuck with a light aqua, green and a dark brown. So, I got started and took some spray paint and painted the whole mat one color to begin with.

Then, while it was drying, I began designing what I wanted on my mat. I picked this leaf design from the designs that came with my Silhouette machine. 

I copied and pasted that same leaf design several times. I enlarged some of those more than others , and then I changed the angle of them all, so that they were tilting different directions. Then I welded them all together to get this design:

I loved the way it came out...springlike and whimsical.

Next thing I did was to cut it out.

Now, I cut mine out of vinyl, but honestly it didn't really stick to the prickly-like mat, so you really could even cut it out of paper and just lie it on top as a stencil. 

I cut mine on my Cameo. It was 12 in by 23 in. 

I was ready to place it on my dry mat now, to use as a stencil. IF you do use vinyl, you made need a couple extra hands to get it all off in one piece and onto your door mat. haha 

(My five year old helped me a bit.)

Next, you just want to spray paint directly over the top of the stencil, so that the paint doesn't go under the sides of the design you cut out. I sprayed green here to paint the leafy stems/plants. 

It dries rather quickly when using spray paint. After it's dry, you can remove your stencil.

It still doesn't look that great at this point, so now to make it pop a bit more...

 I still had a lot of space around the edges of my mat, so I took a piece of cardboard to use as a straight edge and used my brown spray paint to paint a border around the mat. I was almost done!

The last thing I did was to add just a bit of white paint here and there to lighten up the mat somewhat and to add a little detail. I just used a white paint pen for this part and it made it super easy and fast.

There you go! 

I love using my Silhouette for everyday little things around my house. And love being able to create on a budget with it too! You have so many options with this. You could even paint a monogram on your front door mat, or a welcome greeting, by using your Silhouette to create the design to use as a stencil first. I love being able to personalize our house, inside and out! If you want to check out more of my creations, you're welcome to visit me over at Create it. Go! anytime! What's your favorite project you've used your Silhouette for? I love to hear about what everybody else is creating too!