STOP Making Doormats the Old Way – This New Method Is 100X Better

Y'all, this looks like a hot mess. Express, what have I done? Are y'all seeing this? Like, it's not. This stencil is here. Here is what we look like before we do the flex seal. So, we're going to take this outside. And y'all, I'm literally an idiot. But do you all see this? How good that stencil did? I'm I love it. Now, [snorts] let me guess. You've tried making a doormat before because you've seen everyone do it, but for some reason it just didn't turn out the way that you wanted it to. Well, I'm here today to let you know exactly what went wrong. And y'all, I found this kind of on a fluke. We were deciding to do a new doormat for Tanner and Courtney's house this Christmas. And I realized that the issue was not in how we were painting the core doormats. It was the core doormats themselves. And y'all, this new update is going to shock you at how easy it is going to be to create a doormat. If you are new here, my name is Lauren and I'm a craft producer here at Makers Gonna Learn, where we strive to bring you inspiration, education, and motivation to get your Cricut out and to actually get use out of it. And y'all, today's project is one where we're going to be putting that Cricut to the test. And we're going to be making a custom doormat the new way. We're no longer using core doormats. Core doormats are out and the difference is going to be jute. Now, they're a very similar material, but y'all, if you've tried using freezer paper before to create your doormats, and you tried to iron it on the core and it just wasn't ironing properly, that's the issue. Get you a jute doormat, and I promise you, it is going to change the game. Now, before we jump into our project, let's go ahead and talk about everything that you are going to need to create your very own custom doormat. The very first thing that you are going to need is going to be freezer paper. Now, it you specifically need freezer paper. And let me tell you why. That is because freezer paper and I'll turn this around has a coating on it. So, you all see this shiny side here. And then you see the dull side. The reason that we want to use freezer paper for this project is because when heated up, this shiny side acts as an adhesive and we can create a stencil out of freezer paper. Now, that is why we definitely suggest using freezer paper. We're just using the Reynolds kitchen freezer paper, coated freezer paper today. You are definitely going to need that. You will also need a Cricut Mini Easy Press. This is going to be very, very important. It doesn't have to be Cricut brand, just some type of mini Easy Press to get that freezer paper stuck down to your doormat. We are also going to be using Flex Seal because this stuff is great when it comes to spraying something on your doormat and it lasting. So, we're going to be using freezer Flex Seal. Now, if you do not have Flex Seal, you can do this with acrylic paint. I did this with acrylic paint for Courtney and Tanner's front porch doormat that they have now for Christmas. And so far, it is holding up phenomenal. So, if you don't have Flex Seal, don't worry about it. You don't have to go out and buy a brand new bottle of Flex Seal if you don't have it. If you have acrylic paint, you can do that as well. It's just going to take you a little bit longer. You are also going to need a 12x 24 in mat. Now, this is not 100% necessary. I don't guess you could really like chop up your word and you could put it piece it together if you don't have a 12 x 24 inch mat, but to make things easier, I do think a 12 x 24 in mat is going to be better for you and it just makes it seem a little bit easier because you can cut it all in one piece depending on your design. Um, but the design that we're going to be doing today, we're going to cut all in one piece. So, we are going to be using a 12x 24 in mat. And now for the star of the show, we have this beautiful jute rug. Now, we do have this linked down below. This one is also a scalloped edge. I love it. But jute rugs are going to be key when it comes to getting this right. Y'all, when I show you how well the freezer paper sticks to jute, I think your jaw is going to hit the floor. Now, with all of that being said, make sure you stick around to see how well it lays down. But before we get there, we do have to hop over to Design Space and we have to design our rug first. Then we're going to cut it and you are going to see the magic after we cut it. So, let's go ahead hop over into Design Space and let's get started. So, now that we are here in Design Space, we first need to go over to Makers Going to Learn and we need to grab the font that we're going to be using for our um doormat. So, I'm going to hop over to the Makers Going to Learn website. Now, the first one that I'm going to be using today is Primadonna. Now, if this one is not the one that you like or if you think you want to go with a different one, one of my favorite features on the Makers Going to Learn website is the fact that you can preview your custom text. So you can type in whatever name you want. You can do it in all caps. You can do it all lowercase. And then you can preview all of the our fonts. Now I have searched Primadonna. If you do like this one, what you can do is click this arrow pointing down. It's going to download. What you're then going to want to do is doubleclick that and make sure you install it on your computer. Mine is already installed, so it's not going to give me the option to install. But back over here at the Makers Going toLearn website, you can see you can go from basic font, display font, all of these different styles of font. Um, and you can pick which one you like the best. Now, the second one that we are going to be using, we did Primadonna first. The second one that we are going to be using is going to be Sugar Wing here. Um, that's going to be for our established date. So, once again, you're going to click that arrow pointing down and download that. Now, if you already have Design Space open like I do and you have not started a project, after you have uploaded those fonts, what you will need to do is come up here to view and reload. If you have started a project, you need to make sure you come over here to save and you need to save that project before you go to reload. But that is a quick and easy way to pull in those new fonts that you just downloaded is coming here to view and reload. And then Design Space will reload and recognize all the new fonts on your computer. Now, what we need to do is we are going to grab a shape and we are going to use this as our piece that represents the rug on the Design Space canvas. So, what we need to do now is we need to grab a measuring tape, which I didn't talk about in the supplies. So, sorry about that. You are going to need a measuring tape, but we're going to grab our measuring tape here. So, I'm not going to be measuring the scallops. I'm just going to measure just a general width um of the area that I have to work with. So, we may go with like 32 in across and we'll go with 20 and 12. Now, back over here in Design Space, what I'm going to do is I'm going to unlock this size aspect ratio. We said our width was 32 and our height was 20.5. And now we have a general representation of the area that we can work with that represents our rug. So now starts the design process. First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to come over here to a text box. I'm going to grab this text box. I am going to make it larger. I'm going to come up here to my fonts. And here is the sugar wing. We can go ahead and set this aside. And then I'm going to duplicate that text box and I'm going to search for the Primadana. And it is right here. Beautiful. Now for this design, I'm going to be doing the name in the script font. And I'm going to be doing established in the SIF font. You can switch either or depending on what style you're wanting to go for. This is just a very basic script font that you see quite often. So, I'm going to type in my last name that I'm going to be putting on our mat. Now, remember, we do want to be mindful of how long our name is because we are working with a 12x 24 in mat. So, we do want to be mindful of that. And then once I have done that, I'm going to bring this up. And then I'm just going to type in established. We'll do Where's their anniversary? 1975. I had to think there for a minute. And then we're going to size this down. Now, if the fonts that we're using is not really your style, guess what? You can choose any font on our website and you can get started with your MGL Plus member today for only $7. You heard me right. For $7, you can get signed up for MGL Plus and you can get access to everything on our website, including all of the education that we have. So, like I said, if these fonts aren't your style, go ahead and click that link down below. Start your MGL Plus trial today so that you can pick whatever font you want. Now, let's get back over to Design Space and let's finish the design process. Now, another thing, if you are working with this Sugar Wing font, I feel like it gets pretty [music] thin. Even when it is sized this large, it gets pretty thin right in here. and I'm afraid that it just won't translate as well. So, what I'm going to do before I start slicing and doing everything else is I'm actually going to add an offset to this just to make it a little bit thicker. So, obviously, we do not need a 0.25. I'm actually going to start with a Z02. And [snorts] I'm going to check out those lines. It looks pretty good. And then [snorts] I'm just going to hit apply. And now when I pull this away, I can see that this offset is actually a little bit thicker now. And I I think I feel a lot more confident with that. So [snorts] I am going to go with that. I'm going to leave that one there for the time being. Um and then I'm just going to size this down just a smidgen [music] more. Let's go ahead and bring it to the front. Now, another thing with this design, and I played around and played around and played around, and you all can determine how you want to do it. Each last name is going to be different. So, you may want to do the Lawson family or the Lawson's or the M or whatever last name it may be. Now, let's talk about the different options when it comes to doormats and what you can do. You can do the blank family. You can do the blank last name with an S. For example, the bells. Um, you can do so many different things with this to personalize it. You just kind of have to play around with it. Um, depending on how the last name is set up and what font you choose. There's going to be options with the different ways that you go. For this one, I wanted this established to kind of nestle up over here. But when I make it a lot smaller, it just doesn't look as well. I don't think it looks as good right here when it is sized down so small. So, I did want to size it up to kind of cut off around the same area as that end. Maybe just a little bit bigger, but it runs into the dip in this end. So, what I'm going to do to create separation for this specific design is I'm going to once again create an offset. Now, this time I am going to make it a pretty large offset. I don't need it to be super huge, but I do want a decent size offset. And then once I've done that, I'm going to hit apply there. And then I'm going to choose that larger offset and the last name and I'm going to slice that out. So, what I'm going after after I have sliced that, I'm going to get rid of that slice result and then that slice result that separates the end. Now, I know there are still pieces in there. I'm actually going to choose the last name. I'm going to come down here to contour and I'm just going to contour those out because I don't think it adds anything. I actually think it takes away from that established date. And then zooming out, I feel like it makes it a lot more readable. I'm going to go ahead and delete that. The last thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to select both of these slice results. We can see here that I'm still under that 24 in. I could even make it a little bit bigger. We'll go close to that 23 and 1/2. And then the very last thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to come over here and I'm going to click attach. And that's just going to attach those two pieces together so that they get cut out together. Um, and once I have done that, I can go to make it. Actually, I can't go to make it. We do have to get rid of or hide this uh base this square that is representing our doormat. So I'm just either going to hide or delete it. After you have done that, remember this is attached. Now we can go to make it. I don't have to save it. I have this project already saved. We are doing this on the mat on a 12x 24 in mat. And I'm just going to click confirm. And now [snorts] we are ready to load our freezer paper onto our mat and start cutting. So what I'm doing now, I'm adding my freezer paper to my light grit mat. Very important, very, very important that you use a light grip mat for this. Ours is a very well-loved light grip mat. So I'm really hoping that it stays. Um, and I'm gonna move my doormat out from under this so that it's not so bouncy because I wasn't be I wasn't able to get a good braid on this. I'm just going to braid this down really well. And then after that, I'm going to cut off the excess using my true control knife. So, just going to cut that off there. does not take a lot of pressure at all to cut through this freezer paper. So, don't try to use a lot of pressure on your mat and snap your mat. [snorts] And now that I have cut it down to size, I'm going to make sure I bring it down really well. one more time. And now that I have that braid down, we're going to come over here to our machine. Make sure you move anything that is behind your machine out of the way because it will knock it off the back if there is room. I'm actually going to be cutting this on freezer paper material. So, when we go to browse all, I can type in freezer and it comes up freezer paper here. So, I'm going to select the freezer paper cut setting, and we're going to go to done. It does only require your finepoint blade to cut freezer paper. So, we are going to move our star wheels. We have moved our star wheels for something else. I don't remember what we had it had them moved for, but I'm going to move them back because they are handy to keep materials. Let's move our housing over just a little bit. There we go. Beautiful. I'm going to go ahead load my material real. I have to scoot you back with this 12 x 24 in mat. And honestly, I'm going to pray that this sticks. It's not wanting to. Actually, we're not going to pray. We're going to we're going to unload and we're going to tape. So, come back over here. If your mat for some reason is not sticky and I cleaned this thing while ago, [snorts] it's not sticky. Grab you some washi tape. Does not matter what kind. Get some that they have on clearance because with this material, washi tape is great. Um, but I'm just going to add a little bit of tape here and there to make sure that this gets a super clean cut and does not mess up cuz I don't feel like cutting it again. Let's do one more piece right here just to be on the safe side. Okay, so [snorts] we have it taped down a little bit. Let's go back over here and let's try this again. We are cutting this on default pressure. Nothing fancy. Freezer paper cut setting. Default pressure. Y'all, I don't have a lot of confidence in this right now. I feel like it's coming up. I may have to cut this again. We're going to see how it turns out. I don't know. We're done with this right now. It is not sticking. We are unloading. I'm going to actually go grab I said we're not doing a strong grip mat, but that is the only other 12x 24 in mat that we have. So, I'm going to go grab a strong grip mat and I'll be right back. Also, here in a minute, I'm going to be ordering some more 12x 24 in mats for this office because I don't think this strong grip mat is going to be great. But if you have to use a strong grip matter, a stronger grip than you think. One thing I suggest, laying getting it not so sticky. So, I'm actually going to use my hoodie, [snorts] my sweatshirt, and I'm going to put it on my shirt. We want a little bit of L. I don't need it to be that sticky because we're going to be putting paper on it. So fingers crossed we can get this to work. And maybe just barely tacking it down is going to be the key. So let's go ahead and grab our freezer paper again. Let's cut that off. First of all, let's see how it does. Okay, if we place it down pretty well. Okay, so with the plastic coating, it's not that bad. It is curling a little bit, but we're just going to pray for the best. I'm [snorts] not going to be bringing this down at all. So, I'm just going to load it here. I'm going to actually take my scissors this time. Better straight line than that. Okay, I've got it laid on there. I'm not really I'm just kind of running my finger. Not a lot. And let's try this again. >> [snorts] >> So once again, I'm going to load this in. Now, I do want to make sure I get the bubbles out, but I don't want to like really tack it down that much. But we are going to go ahead and load her in. Okay. So, we're going to leave that alone for the time being. I can't think about it because if I think about it or if I watch it too closely, it's just not going to do right. So, I've come over here to the floor. What I'm going to do, I'm going to go ahead and get my Cricut Mini Easy Press turned on. I like to do a heat setting of three for this. So, going to go ahead and get everything prepped here on the floor. [snorts] Um, just because I have more work space here in the floor, especially with a doormat. So, I've got that set up. I'm going to go grab my actual doormat and then once we have done that, we're going to check that cut didn't sound good. Y'all keep your fingers crossed. Okay, grabbing my [snorts] door mat. So, I have my setup here now. My Cricut has cut. Has it done what it needs to do? Let's go ahead and unload it and see. Okay, for this project, we are creating a stencil. So, we really need to keep the outside and [snorts] all of the inside of the letters. It's kind of like reverse weeding. So, we can actually There was this is what we're getting rid of the actual name. There [snorts] was a little snag there. I'm just going to use my true control knife and kind of like cut that off as clean as I can. Like that. So, we're getting rid of this. This part is what we want to keep. And I'm going to try my best to pull this up. And we also want to keep these pieces. So, I'm going to leave them stuck to the mat for the time being. You do have to be very careful as to not rip this when you pull it up. So, I'm going to get all of these pieces unstuck from this strong grip mat, y'all, that I had to use. Can't believe I had to use a strong grip mat with paper. It's like a cardinal sin or something. Little snag there. Little snaggy snag. We're going to pull this guy up there. And we are just going to pull our actual stencil up off the mat. Maybe this would have been easier if I would have taken the letters out first. Who knows? Okay, we still got we're getting some snags here, like on the corners. There we go. This is also a really good project to make sure you have a um very sharp blade. Oh, we need that. That guy come from inside the S. I was like, where did he come from? We need that. Okay, we didn't rip anything. And we've got a lot going on here. So, let's be careful. Pulling this up. This snagged there is why that's pulling that up. Y'all, this looks like a hot mess. Express. What have I done? Okay, I think I just need to get this off the mat right now. So, this looks wild. Fun. So fun. That snag. That's what that was. Not as bad as I thought, except this guy got turned twisted somehow. Beautiful. So, not near as bad as I thought. We do need to take out the E here. There are quite a few little snags on him. Just be gentle when you do this. We can rip these letters, but we don't want to rip our stencil at all. And this is all going to make a lot more sense when we start lining this up and ironing it down. I think you're going to see how much better this is going to be. So, let's go ahead and take our five out. Beautiful. We've got the middle of the nine over there. We've got the middles of the O's somewhere on here. Here's the middle of the A. I'm going to leave this here. We're going to take this over to the actual doormat here. And we're going to lay this down and kind of start the process of lining this up with your doormat. Give me just a second. I got to crawl over here and get this joined up with that in there. Okay. [snorts] So, with your stencil, if you really are very very particular about getting it centered, what I suggest you doing, grab your U measuring tape again. And what I'm going to do is I'm going to measure from one side to that edge. Remember, I said it was 32 in across. So, I'm just going to measure from the end of the N over, and we're sitting at about 5 in. And then from the end over to the beginning of the L to the f to the closest thing of the L and it's also 5 in. So I'm pretty much got it centered. So what I'm going to do now with my mini Easy Press on a heat setting of three, we're going to start ironing this down. And y'all, can you see? First of all, it's not going anywhere. That is insane to me. [snorts] So, I'm just going to start ironing down our stencil. And it doesn't take a lot. I don't if you have ever done a core doormat, you know how hard it can sometimes be to get these stencils perfect. But y'all, with this, I was so blown away when I was doing the doormat for Tanner and Courtney. So, I actually did it the opposite way the last time. I cut out the letters, the the word bale, and I traced it and I painted it because I did not think that this would stick to J as well as it did. And when I was in the middle of that video, I was like, I I texted Tanner and Courtney and I said, "Y'all, we have unofficially but officially found the new way to do doormats because this is so insanely easy compared to doing this on core. Y'all, core was not my favorite at all." Anyway, this ain't going nowhere. like nowhere. So, we're [snorts] just ironing this down, taking our time. And I think this doing a doormat like this on jute versus core is going to be so much easier to piece things together to do larger doormats as well. I'm just so I'm so tickled. I can't help it and excited. Okay, so we have the main portion of the doormat down. [snorts] And y'all, this is Yes, of course it's going to come up when I pick at it, but like, are y'all seeing this? Like, it's not. This stencil is here. So, give me just a second. I'm going to move this back. I'm going to grab these inside pieces and we're going to complete the puzzle piece. We're going to figure out where each one of them go together and hope and pray we have all the pieces. Yay. It did look like a hot mess there for a minute, but I think we've got it all. So, this part goes there. It's also going to make it so much easier, y'all. I swear it's going to make it so much easier with these smaller pieces to get good crisp lines. I'm so excited. The little one here, this little guy there, and then we have this bigger guy here like that. And then the O has two pieces. And this one goes. Another thing is as you are doing this, that is why I didn't want to completely get rid of this so that I can reference how like the O goes. You all can see here is the O. So now I can kind of position these two. I'm going to set it like right here. Let's just place this guy right back in here. And let's put him down. Watch this. Okay. So, if you can't figure out how to place it, what I'm going to do is I'm going to lay that down there. And then I'm going to position that one there. And watch. I'm going to pop that. Pop that. And then what I can do is just pull that guy up. And then get a little bit more heat on that. And look at there. Did y'all see how easy that was? I mean, that looks profession profession. Same thing with the S. Let's do it. Let me show you one more time. So, we don't have our little guys on the inside of the S. But look, we're going to pop that bad boy right there like that where it's supposed to go. And then let's position this guy inside of there. how it goes. Let's grab our press. Let's press that guy down like that. Then with it still in position, let's put that guy there where it's supposed to go. Press him down. Well, I'm going to come back. But now all I have to do is pull up that S. And look, I can add more heat there. And now it's perfectly aligned the way that it's supposed to be. Now I'm just going to uh we're just going to guess with the L. It's not that serious, but I am going to get that down. And then we also need our A. Now the A was a little weird. Let's get it in there. Let's place it down how it's supposed to. like this and then like this. [snorts] So, I'm going to iron that. And then what we're going to I'm filming. Hi. And then I'm going to press that back down like that. And last thing we need to do, come back over here. We're going to grab the center of the nine. And we're going to place it down here. I don't know if that's the way it was supposed to go. Okay, we're going to try this. We're going to do this again. Don't burn your fingers, guys. And there we go. Just going to give it one more good going over. And [snorts] now we are ready to take this outside. Hold on. I'll let you see it from this side. Here [snorts] is what we look like before we do the Flex Seal. So, we're going to take this outside and we're going to spray some Flex Seal on it. Okay. So, what we're doing now is we're just taking our Flex Seal. I am going to make sure I clean the nozzle off real good. We got a good spray on it. I am going to make sure it's shaken up well. And we're just going to do this in quick even strokes. And y'all, I'm literally an idiot. Okay, guys, let's talk about what I just did. And yes, I am outside. So, if you hear a bunch of cars, it's because whatever. Anyway, let's talk about what I did. And I know that some of you all saw me when I did this. This is the front of the doormat. And I forgot to protect around my stencil. Now, I caught it, but there is a front and a back of the doormat. And I'm not going to be able to save the front. But what you must do with this project is you must you must protect the edges that you think that there's going to be overspray. So, make sure that you are protecting these edges. And this is the back of the doormat. I don't think you can tell. Really? You can when you get close. I'm going to fix that. You don't worry about that. But make sure you protect your overspray. So, let's start the process of spraying again. [snorts] So, once again, you're going to make sure you shake it up really well. We're going to do Okay, it's gotten too cold. We brought the project inside because it was too cold outside. So once again, we've warmed this back up. We're just doing short quick bursts around our dries, we will reveal these crisp clean edges. Okay, y'all. I'm impatient and I can't wait any longer. So, we're just going to go with it and try not to get this all over us. Are you all seeing how crisp these lines are? Do you all see? Uh, look how crisp and clean those edges are. I'm about to lose. I'm about to Hold on. I got to put you down. So impressed at how clean those lines are. Now, this guy right here is going to be a doozy. We're just going to have to get the fingers dirty. I'm going to go grab some tweezers for the rest of this maybe. Oh. Oh, thank God. I'm holding my breath. All that's left is the L. Come on. >> [snorts] >> Okay, I'm going to be real honest. That L is not as crisp. The bottom of the L is not as crisp as I thought it should be. But [snorts] I do also think it has a lot to do with the fact that I left the Flex Seal outside and let it get like too cold and it congealed. But you can't tell me you're not impressed with that. Literally this that right there is the place that I don't think got as it wasn't as crisp. But do you all see this? How good that stencil did? I mean I'm I love it. Now what I meant because I did have to do this on the back because I didn't think about it. Um you see this edge here? I think I'm just going to take some um adhesive, like industrial strength adhesive, and I think I'm gonna trim this out. Probably not on this video, but I do show you how to do this in another video that I will link down below if you ha if this happens to you and you mess up and you have to do it on the back because you can see like there's a difference in the back and the front. The front is obviously a lot prettier. I had to do it on the back. This [snorts] still looks really good. Like I said, I am going to trim this out. I'll link the video below. The very first jute rug that we did, um, I added like a scallop trim to the edge of it with some industrial strength adhesive. It is still holding up a month later. I will say that. Um, so the adhesive does work. But other than that, you can't tell me you're not impressed with how clean those lines are on this J rug because J is the new core doormat, y'all. Seriously. Oh my goodness, guys. What did you think about that? Do you really think that the Jude doormats are replacing the core doormats? Because in my opinion, there is no question I think J is the new doormat, especially if you are making your own and doing it with freezer paper. It gets sucked down but can come up super easy and repositionable. I promise you, you're going to be obsessed. Now, [snorts] make sure you leave me a comment. Let me know what you think. We love when you interact with us. Did you catch my mess up before I did? I'm sure some of you all did. Let me know if you did. Also, if you haven't already, hit that thumbs up button if you've liked this video. Subscribe to our channel and hit that bell notification so that you can be notified every single time we get crafty. And y'all, this is going to be a limited time. You can get signed up for MGL Plus for $7. So, make sure you click that link down below and check it out. You're not going to regret it. I will see you guys in the next video. Bye, guys.