You Know I Love Stripes

And so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that I did this:
  to the other side of our newly stamped kitchen rug.

I debated a few other options – diagonal stripes, chevron, etc… – but in the end I loved the idea of the horizontal stripes not to mention that it was the easiest option because all it involved was laying down tape and painting…no cutting, trimming, or measuring.

All I used this two-inch wide masking tape (from Target) to create the stripes:

Before I started I ripped off a small piece of tape and stuck it to my rug to make sure that when removed, it wouldn’t ruin the rug.  Lucky for me, it came off as clean as can be.

So, starting at one end, I laid strips of tape about two inches apart… 
giving me lots of even stripes all the way down the rug.(I actually started laying two pieces of tape together for thicker stripes, but then changed my mind and went with the thin stripes.)

I made sure to wrap the tape around the sides and under the rug so that, if any paint got on the sides, it’d still be where it was supposed to be – part of a stripe. 
Then I carefully took the rug outside and gave it a couple of coats of spray paint, letting the first coat dry (about 30 minutes) before I sprayed the second coat.  After a few hours of leaving it outside to rid it of the paint smell, I brought it in, carefully removed the tape, and laid it in our guest room for 24 hours before bringing it into the kitchen to be walked all over.

We love it!  It seriously looks like it was bought this way.  I noticed that the spray paint preserved the texture of the rug much more than the sponged on latex paint did.

[Update:  Read about how the rug is holding up here!] 

Budget breakdown for this side:
Tape:  $4 (used only about 1/8 of the roll)
Spray Paint:  $4 (used one leftover can and half of another)
Total:  $8
…which brings the Grand Total of the entire project to:  $34
Thirty-four beans for a reversible rug that we can flip and reverse depending on our mood, that can be easily washed, that adds some much need pattern and color into our kitchen, and that gives our dish-washin’ footsies a soft place to land.  Not bad, I’d say!

So, the only question that remains is, which side do you like better?      stripes                                                  or                                             patterned   

.           .           .

I’ve been busy in the nursery and I’ve got a good read/tutorial coming your way this weekend!  Hope to see you then!

P.S.  It’s party time!  Linking up at A Bowl Full of Lemons, Ginger Snap Crafts, and Gingerly Made!