Quickie DIY: Cheery Welcome Mat

Happy Monday, everyone! I’ve been wanting to share these welcome mats for a few weeks now, but our front door is just not that attractive. So over the weekend, my friend Sebastian and I took these DIY welcome mats to some houses near Merrion Square for a little photo shoot. We had a whole street of vibrantly colored doors to choose from.

Being able to take photos like these makes me so happy to live in Dublin. If only my door looked like these doors. One day, maybe.

We had such a fun afternoon pretending it wasn’t totally strange to be taking photos of welcome mats in front of houses that weren’t ours! Thankfully, most of the Georgian houses are now businesses, so we didn’t have any disgruntled home owners wondering what we were doing!

For the welcome mats, I used the word failte, Irish for welcome, and painted it in Dublin blue. Then I made one using bonjour in a happy yellow.

Here’s how to make them (must get better at taking photos of the process for you!).

What you’ll need: 

plain door mat (I got one for 7 euro at Ikea and cut it in half with a box cutter)

spray paint

cardboard cut to the size of your door mat

craft knife

pins

What to do: 

On the cardboard, draw your welcoming word in the font that you’d like. You can also print the word on paper and trace onto the cardboard. I sketched the letters, trying two different fonts for the two mats. Cut out your letters with the craft knife, saving the holes for the letters like a and e.

Pin the cardboard onto the door mat, pinning the holes back on. Take the mat outside and spray the inside of the letters carefully with spray paint. Wait a few minutes for it to dry, then un-pin the cardboard. Let the mat dry overnight and then set it out in front of your door to welcome all your visitors!