This spray painted outdoor rug project is so easy, you can do it this weekend!
I’ve done some stenciling and painting of things that I used for rugs and flooring. I’ve done stenciling on a small pet mat rug and a piece of vinyl wallpaper as a rug for my laundry room. I bought an inexpensive outdoor rug at Home Depot to use with the new Vintage Cruiser camper.
You can see the cozy setup on a recent camping trip. That’s Lulu Mae’s brother Charlie hanging out. Notice the plain gray outdoor rug and the run of the mill box fan.
Spray Painted Outdoor Rug
ahhh, so much better! You can see how I paint fans in the post Customized Plastic Fan. Today I’m sharing the painted outdoor rug.
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Tape border of outdoor rug
I knew I wanted to spray paint a border on the simple outdoor rug. I tried to tape off a boarder with painter’s tape, but it wouldn’t stick at all to the texture of the outdoor rug. Enter, Gorilla Duct Tape ! This extra tough duct tape worked really well! As you can see I used a tile coaster to space the outside and inside pieces of tape. It was really hot, I did the taping off inside and rolled the rug up to take it outside to paint.
Rolling up the rug crinkled the duct tape a little. I walked all around the rug—stepping on the tape to straighten it out.
Spray Paint Outdoor Rug
The cardboard was to prevent overspray, but after testing it, there was no overspray on the cardboard. The paint is Sea Glass by Krylon.
When spray painting something like this, it’s best to spray straight down and not at an angle.
I love the new spray painted border on the outdoor rug. It was so exciting to see the pretty new color.
Remove Tape
This outdoor rug is very thin and easy to manage. It isn’t heavy at all, and easily folds into a small rectangle fitting in the camper storage really easily.
Here’s a close-up of the pretty color. But it looks like it’s missing something, right?
Apply Contact Paper Stencil to Outdoor Rug
I made a stencil on my Silhouette Portrait out of contact paper. I meant to show you how I use these type of stencils and forgot to take a picture. The entire piece of contact paper was place on the rug before any weeding of letters was done. You can see in this picture I still needed to weed the ER in CAMPER.
Prepare stencil with paper and painter's tape
I used the backing paper and painter’s tape to protect the outdoor rug from getting overspray.
The contact paper stencil curled when the spray paint was applied. Again, I sprayed straight down, without using any angle at all.
Yeah, that didn’t work! The camera saw it pretty well, but in this image and in real life, the spray painted stencil was not showing up at all.
Trace stenciled letters with Paint Pen
I used a black paint pen to trace the Happy Camper letters as well as the inside and outside of the stenciled camper.I really LOVE the sea glass color. I wish the lettering and the camper were larger.
The stencil was purposely put in the bottom ⅓ of the outdoor rug because the chairs will most likely be located near the camper.
I love the “pop of color” the spray painted rug and box fan add to the camper! Isn’t is amazing how well the color of the spray painted box fan matches the camper?
I am a Happy Camper!
gail
girlfromwva
love the color!!!
Jennie
It’s really cute. Question for you. I’m doing an 11x15” silhouette stencil for a sign for my son in law. I did one that was all 1 piece. It didn’t work. If I did each row of letters separately will it make it easier to handle? The stretch made it almost impossible to do. I tried with the sticky transfer paper, but I wasn’t sure how to use it and it wasn’t just picking parts up that I didn’t care about. I suppose practice makes perfect, but the vinyl is expensive for practicing. Thanks for sharing your expertise. Oh and I started out hoping that there was a chalk couture transfer sheet of the same saying, but no luck.
Gail Wilson
Jennie,
I'm actually planning a facebook live about stenciling soon. I would have already done it, but the weather has been too nice to stay indoors.
I need a few more details to clearly understand what you're trying to do.
I am assuming that you are not doing a stencil, but individual letters for a phrase.
If that is the case, these are the steps I would take.
1) design and cut out phrase (I like to draw a box around my design so that everything is "square")
2) weed away extra material, including oodles and boodles (middle of letters, etc)
3) apply transfer material to all letters, burnishing well
4) peel everything up and place it on your sign
5) burnish letters down
6) pull up transfer material.
have you seen my youTube videos on this? (you are my sunshine)
gail
ps let me know if you have any more questions, I'd be happy to help, even jump on the phone for a quick call if that would help.
Terri Hughes
The rug turned out very nice and I love your little camper. Enjoy your camping trips!
Julie @ followyourheartwoodworking
Such a great set up you have, all colour coordinated.
Happy Camping!