BrittanyMakes

Confession: I’ve been sitting on this project for over a month.  A month! Why the wait, you ask? Well, I kinda feel like I cheated, although simultaneously I kinda feel like a genius.  Take your pick, I wont be offended.

I wholeheartedly admire pure artisans, crafters, and makers.  I admire their patience and persistence and adoration of what they do.  I also admire people who pay a pretty penny for handcrafted goods, and I wish I had that pretty penny to support said makers, but alas I am not made of money therefore if I want something I usually have to figure out how to hack it, DIY it, fake it, or give up on it.  Consider this project a clever hack; mighty clever if you ask me!

I’ve gone and made a wall hanging (from a bathmat!!!). I am crazy in love with Rachel Duvall’s textiles, so you can say this project piggy backs off her designs, specifically how the wall hanging is actually hung from the wall.  Alright, enough words, lets get to the tutorial shall we?

First, per usual, I ran to Target to get some supplies.  I picked up a plain white bath mat. I kind of wandered around for a while, I was looking for something simple in design with a loom type look to it, maybe a welcome mat, maybe a rug? No, a bathmat!  Next, I rummaged through my craft paint stash, picked two boy-ish colors (teal & navy) as well as a bottle of fabric medium and a roll of Frog Tape.  I taped off the top triangle first, mixed the fabric medium and the acrylic paint per the instructions, and liberally coated the bathmat in paint.  I let this dry for a hour or so, then repeated this step for the bottom triangle.

Once the paint was completely dry, I dipped into my stash of upholstery cord and cut a bunch of ~12″ length pieces to make some fringe

I tied a knot in the middle of each 12″ piece of cord

Then attached to the bottom of the bath mat using hot glue

Then I unraveled each strand to get that lovely rug fringe look

I LOVE the way Rachel Duvall hangs her textiles, so I created something similar out of 1″x2″s.  I measured, cut, and stained the wood then secured them together with screws from the reverse side.  I added a picture frame hook on the back and hung it in the nursery.

So yeah, it’s a bathmat, and I’m probably not fooling anyone, but I think it actually looks really great! You could definitely do the same thing with a small entry rug of sorts, you know, those small rugs no one buys that measure like 2’x3′?

Would you consider hanging a bathmat as wall art?