How to make a rug for like nothing...

So when I'm not in design hoarding mode, I'm usually in painting stuff.  I love to figure out ways to indulge my crazy ideas on the cheap, because if I bought everything I liked I'd be broke.  I have been looking for a rug for my mudroom for ever, and CB2 had a great one... but it was too big.  Boo.

Well necessity if the mother of invention or whatever... I needed a rug, and it  turns out so did my kitchen, so I just had to make some.

(ignore the dark brown desk, going black soon...I know I'm the only one this bothers. )

So how did I make them?

Joe likes to drive his cars on the vines. Why?

 Because mommy sacrificed his car rug for the mudroom...

So first you are going to need to find an old flat rug to reinvent. The car rug was perfect, it was 3x5 and had a rubber backing and was thin and flat, and I had bought it for $5 at a yard sale a ways back. (PS...Yard sales are the place to find good cheapy rugs and IKEA) 

Besides, the kids have the whole house to drive cars on... the old mat was so LITERAL.  It will do wonders for their imaginations to come up with new roads, I mean driving on vines... that's pretty good!

So after you steal your kids rug, cut a drop cloth (Home Depot folks, $9.99) a few inches larger than the rug and prime it.

Spray the backside of the drop cloth and the front of the rug with spray adhesive. Stick them together and smooth out...

Flip the whole thing over and hot glue the edges to the backside.

You can also do this after you paint your pattern.

Probably a good idea since I got paint all over my floor when I did the edges.

Now for the creative part. 

Paint away, whatever crazy things you want, the rug of your dreams, favorite pattern, unicorns, a cool pattern you stole from the Internet...

I did a faded ombre as my background...

Then taped out a pattern and painted some more...

I cleaned up my edges and tried some super ugly stuff too, but that got painted over.

(See you can't screw this up. If you don't like, just paint over!)

And then roll on 2-3 coats of polyurethane to make it washable.

Boom. Floor mat.

For my kitchen I sacrificed a Pier One 5x8 flatweave that I didn't like the color of. I bought this on clearance for $30 years ago, and its been used for staging, so no love lost. I did like the fact that it had a fringe and I wanted to keep that.

For big rugs I recommend ironing your drop cloth...

Prime it, and using the spray adhesive join them together starting in the center and working out. Use a warm iron set on low to get any wrinkles out and push them together...

Now paint away. I did crazy town Suzani...

Hot glue to the back.  To keep the tassels I folded the edge over and glued it to the top of the rug, then added a banding. I glued the other sides over.

Add polyurethane.

Done. I've already spilled, and it wipes up easy. I've also vacuumed it too.

And when you get bored paint a new design.

Despite the fact that you will need a large floorspace to do this on, it is relatively easy.

Incorporating a real rug underneath makes it more substantial, and it lays nicely.

You can also just make a floor cloth without a rug backing like this zebra hide...

See this post on  the how to.

Oh, and for those of you that want to skip the drop cloth or don't have a rug to repurpose, try painting right onto the Erslev rug from IKEA...  Its got a great chunky texture, so just go with it. $39.99 for a close to 6x9.