Welcome To Our Home! - A Custom Made Welcome Mat

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

 

 



I've been trying to find an inexpensive welcome mat for sometime.  I tried cheap five dollar ones from your normal box stores, but they hardly kept any dirt from coming into the house.  Plus, they were boring, and I wanted something that reflected our family.  Then, on one of my almost weekly trips to Ikea, I found a large mat at Ikea for $6.  Then I searched for a tutorial on painting a outdoor mat, and found this great tutorial. 

To start my mat, I thought awhile about what should be on it.  Maybe something in Spanish?  Something witty or clever?  Then I had it!  Three words that reflect our family: Pray, Love, and Laugh.

As a stay at home mommy, the next big task was to find time to do my project.  The mat and paint sat in my laundry room for about a month.  I finally found some time while my oldest was at school and the baby was napping.  So I got to work!

Here was my list of supplies:

• Rustoleum High Performance Enamel
• Foam Paint Brush
• Plain Outdoor Mat
• Painters Tape
• Yard Stick or Measuring Tape
• 4" Stencils

 

The first thing I did was determine how far apart vertically I wanted the words.  Using painter's tape, I made lines so the words would be straight

.

 

Next I made a vertical line with the tape to make sure the words all started at the same place.

 

  

Now I was all set up.  All I had to do was place the letters for each word right next to each other.  I placed the bottom of each stencil under the tape so the stencil wouldn't move while I was painting. 

Once a word was finished, I removed the line of tape, and moved onto the next row.  I left the stencils in place until the paint was dry.  Here's a picture of "Pray" and "Love".

 

 

 

After pulling off the tape and stencils, here's what my new welcome mat looks like!  I painted a cross and heart to the end of Pray and Love because the engineer in me needed symmetry. 

 

 



 I was worried about the durability of the paint, but it holds up really well.  I guess if its good enough for industrial applications, its good enough for my front porch.  Here is a picture a month later!

 



 

What to do will all the spices?

My husband is a great cook.  And by cook I'm not saying he's really good at following a recipe.  In fact, when he cooks he never uses a recipe.  He just picks a meat, some random ingredients, and voilà!  Something delicious! Since he loves to cook, we have lots of spices.  So many that we used to dedicate an entire cabinet to spices.  But then we found these magnetic storage bins.

We emptied all the different spice bottles into these bins, labeled the bins, then stuck them to the side of our refrigerator.  Our refrigerator is right next to the stove, so its easy to grab the needed spice when cooking.  And I think it adds character to our kitchen.