How to Make a Stenciled Doormat with a Cricut

So I’m just going to be real here. Not all my craft projects are perfect. And this stenciled doormat was a near crafting fail. I was prepared to throw the mat in the trash, but was pleasantly surprised at how good it turned out. There are lots of great tutorials out there for how to make a stenciled doormat with a Cricut, and I’m going to be honest and say this isn’t one of them. LOL! But I’m sharing anyway in case anyone else has the same challenges I did. It IS possible to save a craft project from certain death!

Supplies needed to make a stenciled doormat

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• Criut or other cutting machine
• 17 x 30″ Coir Doormat
• 12×24″ Cricut Standard Grip Cutting Mat
• Cricut Stencil Vinyl (or if that fails, use cardstock)
• Cricut Transfer Tape
• Weeder Tool
• Outdoor Paint
• Foam Brush

How to make a stenciled doormat with a Cricut

I started my project by cutting out my design on Cricut Stencil Vinyl. I wanted the design to be larger than 12″ high so I cut it out in two separate pieces. That’s super easy to do in Cricut Design Space. Just click on the eyeball icon on the right toolbar to hide the design you don’t want to cut.

After weeding the design, I attempted to move it to the doormat without using transfer tape. The design was so large and the stencil vinyl so thin that it was impossible to move it without distorting the design. So I tried using transfer tape so the design would hold it’s shape better.

The problem with that was I could not get the stencil off the transfer tape. It simply would not stick to the doormat. So after a lot of time and effort I was left with this mess:

I’m impressed that so many people have had success with using stencil vinyl on doormats. I wish I knew their secrets because it simply did not work for me. So I had to come up with a plan B. I’ve heard that freezer paper can be easier to cut and position than stencil vinyl, but I didn’t have any on hand so I opted to use cardstock. I taped 4 sheets of card stock together and cut it down to two 12×24″ strips so it would fit on the large Cricut cutting mat. Then I trimmed the excess paper around the designs so I could nestle them together and used lots of stick pins to hold it in place on the doormat.

I used a foam brush to apply the outdoor paint and very carefully held down the edges of the stencil with 2 fingers to prevent bleeding. It was a slow and tedious process and I honestly didn’t know how it was doing to look when I removed the stencil.

So I was pleasantly suprised at how good my stenciled doormat turned out!

You can find the SVG file I used here and you might also want to check out my Pinterest board which is full of dog themed SVGs.

So the moral of this story is…..don’t give up on a craft project that doesn’t go as planned! And keep trying until you master the skill. I KNOW there’s an easier way to do this and I’m going to be sure to figure it out!

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