Painted Rug From a Drop Cloth

You know what I love? A really cheap DIY that works out just the way I imagine in my head.

Yep. That’s the best.

This project is one of those things. I wanted a cheap outdoor rug that I wouldn’t feel guilty about tossing at the end of the season because we drop one too many s’mores on it. I decided on using a drop cloth because they are super cheap and the perfect size for a large outdoor rug. Also, they are already a thick canvas material that stiffens even more once painted.

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Here’s a quick tutorial so you can make your own DIY painted rug.

Supplies: 

Canvas drop cloth (I used a 6ft x 9ft – shown in picture below)

Quart of paint (I grabbed an oops can in this pretty color of aqua)

Painter’s tape

Paint brush

Plastic drop cloth for painting

Lay out your drop cloth over a plastic sheet. If you want to steam the wrinkles out do that before placing it on the plastic sheet. I opted not to steam out the wrinkles and they pretty much loosened up after laying out for the day.

Next, tape off your design. A striped design is super easy and will take you just about an hour to tape and paint the whole rug. Any geometric design would be great, though. I made my stripes about 10 in thick. I can’t remember exactly, but the math ended up leaving one or two stripes with 9 inches instead of 10 but you can’t tell at all.

You’ll notice in the photo that every other stripe looks bigger. The larger stripes are the ones that get painted. Once the paint is peeled off the unpainted stripes will end up being the same size.

The painting went pretty quickly. I didn’t have any rollers on hand so I ended up painting with a brush which was much more time consuming. So if you have a roller, use that instead because it will be much faster of a project.

Peighton came out and helped me paint the stripes. She’s really into doing project with us right now and I’m happy to put her to work 🙂

I left the rug out for about an hour in the hot Florida sun and it was bone dry. Once it was dry I peeled off the tape.

To protect it from the elements you can use a fabric protectant like this one.

That’s my $15 drop cloth outdoor rug, guys! So easy and it makes such a huge difference to my space.