Don't Throw Out Your Old Jute Rug!

I mean look at this stained old thing! I am so embarrassed to say this was "welcoming" visitors inside our front door - I know, right?!

I had some Fusion Mineral Paint in the colour Raw Silk (an off white) and a stencil from a craft supply store. I use a newspaper or brown paper to wipe off excess paint from my brush before stencilling - this is called "dry brushing" and helps to prevent paint from seeping under the edges of the stencil as you stipple or swirl it on.

It doesn't matter if the paint doesn't go into every fibre of the jute. Just make sure the majority of the area is covered as you go. You can go back over it if you feel it needs more paint. Don't forget to tape down your edges before you start.

Looking good so far.

So now that I had the centre of the rug sorted, it was time to tackle those stained fabric edges. I taped off the inside once the stencil was dried.

I used some Midnight Blue (Fusion Mineral Paint) - using a darker colour helps to hide the lighter stained fabric much more easily. I made sure I worked the paint into the sewing stitches as they were a little deeper and harder to get to. You may need to touch up in these areas once the first coat has dried.

The Midnight Blue covered really well in one single coat with just a little touching up along the stitching.

Tip: remember to flip over the mat/rug and paint a little bit of the fabric on the underside at the very edges. Sometimes the corners or edges of jute rugs will tip up a little revealing the underside and therefore would show the old colour. To make a neat finish, make sure you do this part.

There you go - all ready to welcome visitors once again, in a much more dignified manner!

I'd love you to visit my blog post on this project and more at the link below. I'll be doing a similar project on Hometalk's Facebook page LIVE on April 26th 7pm EST. I'll be stencilling our large family room jute rug and would love to know what stencil design you would put on it?