d.i.why not? black & white extreme stripes painted rug

first of all i want to send a great big THANK YOU to my friend danell who has a graphic design company called design of today.  i know her from my past professional life and she is the one responsible for creating the super cute illustration and header at the top of my blog.  i was so excited when she offered to create something and i have to say she really brought my vision to life!  it is exactly what i wanted (simple and girly!) and i just love it!

my latest obsession has been bold black and white graphic patterns.  my other latest obsession is hot pink.  so excited to celebrate both in this post! how super fab does my newly reupholstered fuchsia vintage chair look sitting on my even more fab black and white painted rug???

 as many of you know i have painted a few graphic rugs over the past year.  this time i decided to really challenge myself with the design.   and i have to say that i am so glad i did it!  the longest part of creating all of these painted rugs is during the taping/ measuring process.  be warned that this taping job takes quite a while (several hours) and much more tape (4 rolls!) than my others.  i spent most of my taping time watching episodes of downton abbey (my guilty pleasure show!) got me through this project!  and i am really glad i stuck with it because i think it looks pretty cool!

materials needed:

• 2 quarts of paint (i used a flat black interior latex paint from behr)  but you may want to start with a gallon to be cost efficient.
• fabric medium (i mixed two and a half 118 ml bottles of liquitex brand into one quart of paint... i used a total of 5 bottles of fabric medium)
• small bucket (great for mixing the paint and the fabric medium without making a mess)
• 1 paint roller (i used a 3" roller)
• 4 rolls of scotch brand green masking tape.  this is the very same tape used for my past rug diys and i swear by it! the blue tape will turn your diy into a disaster! you need heavy sticking power here!
• 1 flat woven rug (i used the white erslev rug from ikea in the 5'11"x 8'2" size)
• x-acto knife
• square picture frame from the 99 cent only store measuring approximately 10" on each side
• measuring tape

here's how i did it!

1 - i covered the entire rug in horizontal strips of tape, and lined them up closely next to each other.  yes that is a lot of tape but in my opinion the best way to make sure everything lines up. 

 2- i then used a square picture frame purchased from the 99 cent store as my guide for tracing square diamonds with the corners touching each other.  i started with the first square centered in the rug

3. i then used my x-acto to cut along the lines, using a straight edge to cut against

4. i carefully planned which of my square diamonds would stay horizontal striped and which would become vertical.  for the vertical striped ones i completely removed the tape from within that square.

5. for the ones that were staying horizontal i removed every other strip of tape and then on the square next to it i removed the opposite rows of tape.  sound confusing? look at the photo for better understanding

6.  i then laid out the vertical rows of tape so that the beginning and end of each piece met a horizontal row without tape (again, look at the photo for understanding). know that nothing will be perfectly perfect as you are doing this on an uneven cotton rug but the flaws will still be cool when done!

7.  using my handy x-acto and straight edge i cut the ends of the vertical stripes so they fit within the square

8.  once finished with the taping i mixed my fabric medium with paint and got started to painting!

9. carefully peel tape off and then ooh and ahh at your amazing creation & dance for joy!

i also think my groovy mod bubble pendant light would look pretty fab with this rug and chair...

so, originally i tried to use a new fabric upholstery spray paint for this project. it was not a good idea. it took too many cans of paint (14 to be exact - each coat took almost 3 cans to cover the rug) to get the white rug to turn black.  Plus, it was super sticky for weeks after i finished with all of the coats... and to top it all off, the worst part of all was when i removed my green masking tape i saw that the paint had bled through the inside weave of the rug into the parts where i did not want it because it was so watery compared to latex paint.  sadly you can't remove the upholstery spray paint because it is permanent.  this never happened on any of my past rug projects using my latex paint fabric medium concoction.  such a bummer and a big waste of time and money.

i decided to start the project over entirely with my tried and true method for painting a rug with good results!!  YAY! maybe it works fine for other stuff but sadly the upholstery spray paint is just not meant for white to black painted rug projects.   i did learn a great lesson though... not a good idea to try a big project with a new product before testing it on something much smaller first... live and learn...

for those of you just tuning in and wanting to know more about me you can by going here... and if you didn't already know... i created a facebook page... check it out and "like" it! and follow me on twitter and you can even follow my boards on pinterest too!

until next time...

the (formerly almost) 40 year old intern