My New Rug - Painted Front Steps

Hey there! How's everything going in your part of the world?  For the most part our weather here in Texas is pretty much leveling off to more pleasant temps and with Easter past us, we should be out of the risk of freezes. Yay!

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to show you how I created my new rug that I painted on my front steps!

I smile every time I come home to my newly painted steps.  It's the little things.

Here's how it looked when I started. Blah! The concrete parts they added on to each side of the original steps drove me crazy!

See my little helper there?  That's Dolly, she follows me everywhere I go when I'm outside.  She had to go inside for this project. Nap time for Dolly!

I used an old paint brush that I didn't care about getting messed up because painting concrete is a bit rough on a brush.  I used paint that I had in my garage, it was the paints the previous owners left for me.  It's all exterior paint.  I recommend buying paint that is specifically for concrete, but I'm on a strict budget and I just used what I had.  That's fine too!

Oh my gosh, it looks so much better already!  I should have stopped here and waited several days for this to dry, but I'm VERY impatient! LOL.  Make sure you WAIT and let this all dry and cure!

Impatiently, I taped off the lines for my rug.  The paint was not dry yall, I'm a goober and pushed on! White paint was all over my hands. LOL! You can see it on the blue tape on the right hand side.
 

And then the orange paint.  It's the same color my house is painted.  Since I did not let everything dry and cure, I had to lots of clean up.  At this point I had to stop because I actually heard thunder.  I just knew it was all going to wash away.  Luckily, it only made rain noises and never really rained.  Woohoo!

Any whoody doody, I had to get the white paint out again and do some touch ups, because concrete is not smooth yall!

I got all of my crafty supplies at Dollar General.  The stencils from DG are perfect for your faux rug project!  $1 each pack and there are tons of stencils in each set.  I'll be using these again.
 

Just so you know, this will not be perfection.  Again, concrete is not smooth.  I really like it not being perfect though, gives it character. I used a paper plate to put my paint on and dabbed with a small sponge brush that I also got at DG.  Dab off most of your paint before you dab the stencil. Less mess that way.

Here's what I have at this point. I love it already!  It does need something else though.

Diamonds!  I used some dollar gentral cheapo sponges to cut out a diamond shape. I chose the diamond shape in trying to stay with my mid century modern home on the outside.

I totally do the farmhouse theme inside my house though. Heehee!

I just used my same orange paint that I had poured into a paper plate to dip in and blot off a bit before stamping down.  I love the sponged look it gave me.

 I'm going to love it even better when it starts to wear off in spots.

Tah Dah!  I'm really enjoying my new rug.  Have you been around long enough to see the first rug I ever painted on steps?  Click here to see that one.

If you loved any of these ideas and want to save them for later, be sure to pin it to your favorite Pinterest board.  I have a Pinterest board set up for all kinds of Home Inspired ideas and it's called For My Home.  I'm pinning something new on Pinterest every day. Won't you join me?

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