As you can see, my front door is boring. Nothing interesting about it.
And my doormat has definitely seen better days! I love the seasonal coir doormats, but they always fade and don't hold up longer than one season. And I'm way too cheap to keep shelling out every couple months for a new one. I've seen river rock spa bathmats and decided I could reuse the rubber shell to make a river rock door mat. I went to the dollar store and bought 5 bags of river rock for, yep, $5.00. I used the multi-colored ones, not the all black ones, because I thought they would look better with my house. I also scrounged around my patio, because we have some river rocks around the border of it. Unfortunately, there are a multitude of creepy crawly bugs living under those rocks. I still shudder when I think of the big, shiny red centipide that lives in there. Ewww.
All I did was rip out the coir insert, clean out the inside and started gluing rocks down. I used a marine adhesive that I just happened to have in my craft stash. I have many kinds of glue. Unbelievable just how many different kinds there are! Since this will be outside, I wanted a waterproof glue with a strong hold. I also had a bunch of rocks left over that weren't flat enough to use on my mat. I didn't want any that stuck up too much.
Here is the finished mat. I love it! Especially since it only cost me $5.00.
I decided I needed a wreath for my front door. Since my front door does not have a storm door and gets a lot of direct sunlight, I didn't want to spend a lot. Plus, if I make it cheaply, I will then be able to make more wreaths to fit every season/holiday/mood. I decided to go simple and rustic for this wreath.
I've seen people use foam tubing from the plumbing dept at the hardware store to make wreath forms and was going to do that, but as I walked into the dollar store, I saw them. Pool noodles. Only a dollar. Well, hello beautiful, you're coming home with me...
I thought I'd duct tape the ends together and that would be that. As you can see, that didn't work. I thought I'd try putting something in the ends to keep the seam from separating, that might work. My son has a massive stash of markers, half of which don't work anymore. I wrapped some double stick tape around one, jammed it in the ends and duct taped within an inch of its life. Worked like a charm.
Then I used twine that I also bought at the dollar store. I used 2 boxes for a grand total of $2.00. I just tied it on and started wrapping. And then just kept on wrapping. And wrapping. And wrapping. Dollar store twine is thin, so it took a bit.
After I finished wrapping, I rooted through my fabric scraps for some fabric to make flowers for my wreath. I went with red (no surprise there) and cream.
I grabbed a cookie cutter and traced out 21 flowers, 7 for each flower. I folded 4 of the flowers into quarters and placed them on another flower (see below) and stitched them down with one stitch at the corner of each fold. You could also use glue if you'd prefer.
Then I folded the remaining 2 flowers into quarters and stitched them down as shown below. Then I fluffed them up, puttting a stitch in here and there as needed to keep it up and fluffed. Glue works here too!
After I finished all my flowers (I made six total, three of each color) I stitched them onto my wreath. I also added a piece of wire to use as a hanger. I did discover I needed to put my hanger where I put the marker in, or it would not be balanced.
Not bad for $3.00, eh? I really like it!
I searched through my garage and found two large pots to use for planters. I had these in my sunroom with some beautiful large plants in them, but my dog would not stop digging in the dirt around them. Plants do not like that. At all. Lucky for me, I saved the pots!
Here is the almost finished front door. I just need to get flowers to put in the pots. Eventually, I will.
So there you have it, my upcycled dollar store makeover! Now all I have to do is make a different wreath and change out whatever I have in the pots for every season/holiday/mood!
Until the next project,
Chris :)
