Painting a Rug

Read the sequence from the top before cutting, painting, or moving pieces.

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The other day I told you about he great new rug I bought for Etta. And I was going to show you right away what I did with it, but we have been sick for a few weeks… yes I said weeks! Some stupid virus that stuck around in each of us for 2 solid weeks and lingered for a third, and I am worried it is about to make a second round. Hopefully not!

But anyway, back to the point at hand, I bought this great 6’7” x 9’6” indoor outdoor rug for Etta’s pink and navy room.

It was an memorable deal for a rug that size only $124 with free shipping from Wayfair. If you want to buy one for yourself here is the link Oriental Weavers, Caspian Ivory and Blue Rug. But the only problem was that it didn’t have any pink… So I had to get my Handmade on to fix that.

I am sure you all have seen many great Handmade painted rugs out there. I have featured a few painted rug tutorials form other great bloggers like these:

Black Chevron Stripe Painted Rug

Handmade Moroccan Stencil Rug

Painted Porch Rug

Painting A Rug

I took these Handmade rugs to heart and decided to try a version of my own. Painting in the lines, on the rug I just bought! Before I got any paint out, I first tested the look with paper. I do this all the time… (including when I was testing out what it might look like to paint the back of my bookshelves black)

It works really well! For one thing I don’t scrapbook anymore, So I have a ton of this random paper to use up, and secondly, I can switch things up if I don’t alike it or not do it at all.

So it started like this, grab your really technical supplies, technically I only drew the circle once, then I folded the paper three times and cut out four pieces at once, then I used one of those as a template for the rest.

First I tried it just with pink on the center of the flowers (or snowflakes… pick what ever you want to call it)

Then I filled in the petals,with a second tone of the pink and I personally thought t was a little cuter.

You can see the half with just centers and the half with the petals filled in too:

Once I basically knew what I wanted I got my painting supplies together and got started with the back breaking part. I did switch the colors from my paper version to dark petals and light centers. This was a good choice (I wouldn’t have known this before hand), because the light colored paint dries stiffer to the touch. The coral, darker paint is soft to the touch. And since there is very little spots of the white paint, it turned out just fine.

*The outdoor rug with it’s looped pile makes painting it option. I do not think this would work with a cut pile rug.

Supplies:

2 tones of pink/coral paint – Sherwin-Williams SW 6582 Impatiens Pink (center of flower and the walls in her room) SW 6586 Heart Felt (petals)

Small 1/2 inch flat paint brush

Start slow. I got the hang of how to paint the edges pretty quickly, but it takes a little bit of experimenting until you are comfortable. Slowly start filling in the petals, being sure to kind of work the paint down into the weave of the fibers.

*I think this shot (below) shows how you could simply add a tiny line of another color and still bring that color into your rug.

Almost done…

And done… with at least the rug. I have a ton more things to do in the room (like install the new flooring… if you noticed that I am painting on a concrete floor… But at least we are one project down!

What do you think about painting a rug?

UPDATE: For those of you wondering how it’s held up, the answer is GREAT! Some of the darker color has faded a little bit, but there hasn’t been any peeling or flaking. A big thumbs up from me!