I have wanted a personalized front door mat for many years now, but have been too cheap to buy one. Then while shopping with my favorite shopping partner, my cousin Jen, I saw the blank door mats at Ikea. They were stacked up by where you check out, I am so that customer that picks up things while waiting, and so darn cheap. Jen said that she had seen a lot of posts on Pinterest about how to make personalized door mats using your Cricut, which I did not own yet. So of course I bought one of the mats, I mean I needed one for my front door anyways, and it was a good deal! I figured I would find someone with a Cricut Maker and bribe them, Starbucks gift card, to make the stencil for me. And then a Christmas miracle happened, I got a Cricut Explorer for Christmas from my hubby, my youngest son Jared and his girlfriend Katie. So 4 months and a lot of research later, I am finally making myself a personalized door mat. I have included in this tutorial the best tips I learned from the many Pinterest posts I read on how to make these. And there were a lot!
Supplies -
Blank Door Mat - I found mine at Ikea for super cheap. Comes in 2 sizes. I bought the large size (2' x 2"11') for about $8.00. I have also seen them for sale at Target, Walmart and Amazon. Ikea Trampa Doormat
A roll of Freezer Paper or stencil vinyl - The freezer paper is an inexpensive way to make your stencils, but you can use stencil vinyl too. You can purchase the freezer paper at your grocery store. Make sure it's not wax paper. Freezer paper is shiny on only one side, wax paper is shiny on both.
Flex Seal spray paint in Black - This is perfect for this projects because it is waterproof. I purchased mine from Home Depot. You can find Flex Seal at any home improvement store. Flex Seal
A Cricut Maker or another cutting machine like it.
An iron to iron freezer paper stencil onto mat.
Directions -
Decide what you want your doormat to say. Anybody that knows me, knows that I love my Starbucks. I get the same thing everyday. Yes, I said everyday! And yes they know me by name and my hubby's name too. Then pick out what kind of font you want to use. I chose to use 2 different fonts. I used Silver South Serif Script that I purchased from a website, Creative Market. They have amazing fonts created by individual designers, along with other items to help create just about anything you want. For the Starbucks font I used one from the Cricut library called Cricut Sans. If you are using a new font you purchased or downloaded onto your computer, please follow this tutorial on how to upload it to Cricut.
Dimensions for the complete stencil are 22"x11.45" and I cut out 'Did You Bring' and 'Starbucks?' in separate text boxes. That way they will fit on my Cricut mat and get cut out separately. I also decided to invest in a 12"x 24" Cricut mat. I purchased mine from Amazon for around $17.00 for 2 mats. Definitely worth the investment. If you do not want to buy the long mat, then can use your 12"x12" Cricut mat. But you will need to split up your wording on to two Cricut mats and then join them together on the door mat when you iron on your stencils.
Once you have decided what you want your door mat to say and have designed it in your design space, you are ready to cut it out. If needed, trim your freezer paper to fit your Cricut mat width, using a straight edge or paper cutter. Having a straight edge will help in your placement on your doormat. Place the freezer paper on your Cricut mat shiny side up. This is very important! The shiny side is the waxy side you are going to iron on to your door mat. If you put it on shiny side down, the stickiness from the Cricut mat may not allow the stencil to fully adhere to the doormat. You will then want to set your cut out to Mirror so when you put the shiny side down on your door mat, the wording will be right side up. Make sure your design is not larger than the cut area on your Cricut mat. If you use the dimensions I gave you above, it will fit perfect.
Grab your iron and turn it on to the Cotton setting. While it's heating up, start lining up your first stencil piece on your door mat.
For horizontal alignment:
I measured from left to right for the horizontal alignment; the left edge of the door mat to the middle of the first character and from the right edge of the door mat to the middle of the last character.
Example: left edge to center of the 'S' and right edge to the center of the '?'.
To align the stencil vertically, so it isn't crooked, I measured three places for vertical alignment.
Example: top left edge of the stencil straight up to top edge of door mat, then do the same with the middle of the stencil and the top right edge of the stencil, making sure they are all the same distance to the top of the door mat.
Place your iron straight down on the stencil and leave for about 30 seconds. Do not iron in a back and forth motion, it will cause the stencil to move and tear. Check if stencil has adhered to the door mat. Keep doing this method on the entire stencil piece until it is securely adhered to the door mat.
You will need to take any inner character pieces that are not attached, such as the middle of the 'a', flip it over, remember you cut it out mirrored, and iron those pieces on too. Repeat this process with the other stencil pieces.
Now you are ready to Flex Seal spray paint your door mat. I made a spray barrier using freezer paper, but you can use anything you have on hand to keep to Flex Seal from getting on anything but the stencil. You will want to spray in a well ventilated area and wear a mask if you have one. Flex Seal has pretty strong smelling fumes. Shake the can vigorously for at least 1 minute. Spray at a 90 degree angle, right above the stencil. This keeps the Flex Seal from bleeding under the stencil. I sprayed each letter completely before moving to the next letter. Because the door mat is textured, you want to ensure that each letter has enough paint so you cannot see anymore of the mat, but without over saturating it. This is the hard part... Waiting for it to dry to see what it looks like. I'm terrible at waiting, so I did take a peek at a corner to see how it looked and then left it to dry for 15 minutes before I pulled off the stencil. I left the inner character pieces to dry for a full hour before I pulled those off. Be careful when you pull off the stencil, the freezer paper may still be wet with paint.
And Voila'! You have your very own inexpensive personalized door mat to greet and impress your friends and family. They will think you had it professionally made.
Have fun!
XO
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