Moving into a new place is a stressful, chaotic time but it's crazy how simply putting a doormat in front of your door can instantly change a new house into a home. And having one thats personalized makes it just that much better.
[what you need]
blank doormat (Ikea for $10)
black paint ($2 at Michaels)
foam paint brush (had on hand)
drafting or masking tape (had on hand)
card stock or heavy weight paper (had on hand)
xacto knife (had on hand)
computer and printer
[what to do]
First you want a place you can lay out the doormat and paint it so that it can also sit overnight to dry so that you don't have to move it and risk messing up or smudging the paint.
Next you want to decide what you want to paint on it and what font you want to use for it. We decided to put "b + e" and used one of our favorite simple fonts, Champagne and Limousines. on the computer make a document and put a "b" on one page, a "+" on another and a "e" on a third and make them really big so they fill most of the page. We did this in Illustrator but it could easily be done in Word as well.
Print out the pages onto the card stock or heavy weight paper. Next is the hardest part of the whole processes, using the xacto knife carefully cut out the letters to make a stencil outline of the letters.
When you're done making your stencils the next step is to tape off the doormat. We decided we wanted a black boarder around the letters so we used the width of the drafting tape as a guide and taped off a boarder to paint black. Then just eyeball where the letters should go in the middle of the boarder and taped them down as well.
Use the foam brush to paint the areas you taped off. The doormat we used is pretty thick so between that and using the foam brush we didn't have to worry too much about the paint seeping under the tape. You might have to blot the paint on to make it cover the way that you want.
When you're done painting, leave the tape on and let it dry overnight.
Now just pull the tape off, put it in front of your door and enjoy your new personalized doormat!