- In today's episode, I am showing you how you can quickly and easily make your
own front porch doormat slash welcome mat using
your Cricut cutting machine. Now, let's get crafty. (upbeat pop music)
(keys clacking) (bell ringing) Hey, I'm Michael and
this is Mr. Crafty Pants, your Cricut and crafting channel where I post Cricut
tutorials, and projects, and inspiration multiple
times every single week. So if you're new around here and also wanting to master
your Cricut cutting machine, you'll want to go ahead and
stamp that subscribe button and then ring that bell for
all of the notifications so that you never have to
miss a single Cricut minute. So for today's project, we are making a DIY welcome
mat slash front door mat. Now, my mom has been
asking me for one of these for quite some time now, and it's been on the agenda. I've literally had this
mat for months now. I picked this mat up for $10 at Target, but I do know that you
can get these at IKEA for around $4 or so. But she has been asking me for a mat that says what's up,
buttercup for quite some time. And so that is what we
were making for her today. Surprise, mom. (laughing) So the materials that we're using today is this black Flex Seal liquid
rubber type of a spray paint, some Oracal 651 permanent vinyl. I know some tutorials out
there use a freezer paper or even like a removable vinyl, but for today's project, I will be using this
permanent vinyl right here. I'll also be using some of
this masking tape transfer tape that I picked up on ShopAuntieTay.com. I absolutely love this stuff. I really haven't heard from anybody who doesn't like this stuff. It's a really, really good transfer tape in my own personal opinion. And if you'd like to try it out yourself, you can use my code, which is crafty, and that'll save you 10%
off on your total order. And it also helps support
this channel at the same time. As for Cricut cutting mats, Cricut currently makes
two different mat sizes for the Cricut Maker as well as their Cricut Explore Air 2. They make this 12 inch by 24 inch version as well as this 12 inch
by 12 inch version, which is what most people
have at home, right? Now by all means, if you have
a 12 inch by 24 inch version, feel free to use that today. But at the same time, I know that most people do
not have a mat this size. So what I'm gonna do is actually do my project on
the 12 inch by 12 inch version so I can show you all
how to do it this way. Now, as far as the design that we're using for today's project, I was planning on designing it myself and then doing a free
download of that SVG file. But y'all, I have been having
so many issues here lately with my website, as well
as my email service. So while all that's
just kind of messed up, I don't want to be sending
y'all to get something that's not gonna be readily
available for you all. So for anybody who's
had trouble with that, I am so, so sorry and I'm hoping to have that
fixed as soon as possible. But for the design, we are gonna be designing it out ourselves in Cricut Design Space. So I am just opening up a new canvas in Cricut Design Space right here. And I'm gonna come over here to the left-hand side of the page to the design panel and click on text. And in this little text box right here, I am just simply gonna
type out, what's up. There we go. So I'm just gonna move that right up here. Now, personally, I wish that this S was a little bit closer in
with the rest of that word. So what I'm gonna do is come up here to the top of the canvas, right here where it says advanced. I'm gonna select that and then I'm gonna select
ungroup to letters right here. And what that does is literally put each of those
letters on its own layer. So if we wanted to, we can literally just grab this S, move it anywhere on the canvas
that we'd like for it to be. We could rotate it if we wanted to, we could resize it if we wanted to, really the sky's the limit, so. But we don't really want
to do all that right now. So I am just moving it right
back up here to that word and then just getting it
a little bit closer in towards the rest of that word. All right, so that looks
a lot better to me. I know it's a really, really
small minuscule change, but to me, that matters. So what I'm gonna do now
it just literally click and drag over both of
these words right here. And then I'm gonna come down here towards the bottom right-hand
corner of the screen and I'm gonna click on
attach just like that. What I'm gonna do now is come back over here to the
left-hand side of the page and click on this little text icon again. But this time, I'm
gonna type in buttercup. Oops. There we go. Now, I don't want to
use that same font again so what I'm gonna do is come up here towards the top left-hand
corner of the screen where it says font. I'm gonna select that. And then I'm gonna come over here towards the top right-hand
corner of this drop-down screen. And I'm gonna select system. And what that system option means is it's literally pulling
up all of the fonts that you have downloaded
onto your computer. Now, I already know the font that I'm wanting to use
for today's project, so I'm gonna come up here
to this little search bar and we'll type in Barty. There we go, right here. We're using the Barty
Allen font right here. Now, I did download this Barty Allen font absolutely free from dafont.com. Now, if you are not
familiar with dafont.com or with how to download fonts for free so that you can use those
in Cricut Design Space, what I'm gonna do for you is link that video of mine right up here. It's a really easy step-by-step tutorial that really anybody can follow. And it really gives you access
to so many different fonts that you wouldn't have otherwise. So I'm just gonna click on this
Barty Allen font right here, and that's gonna change
buttercup to that font. Now, I do think that I'm gonna
change this B to capital B. So what I'm gonna do is just double click this little font box and then click right up in here, delete that B, and then
just put in a capital B, just like that. Now, obviously, the spacing
in this word is completely off and we definitely want to fix that. So again, to fix that, what I'm gonna do is come right up here towards the top of the canvas, click on advanced, and then I'm gonna select
ungroup to letters. And that just does the
same thing over again. It puts each of those
letters onto its own layer. So you could really move each of those letters
independently however you'd like. So I'm just gonna click on this U, bring it in a little bit closer. The same with these T's. But what I want to do
with these T's I think is just make it look like it's one line that's crossing both T's just like that. I'm gonna move this E in a
little bit closer as well. And maybe just rotate that
just a smidge just like that. Now, I'm gonna grab this R
and move that in as well. The same with the C, as well as the U and the P. And obviously, we need
that question mark as well. I am gonna rotate this
question mark just a little bit and maybe make that just a
little bit bigger as well. And there we go. I really, really like the
way that this word looks now. So what I'm gonna do is just click and drag over the entire word. And then we'll come down here to the bottom right-hand
corner and select attach. So what I want to do now
is get the proportions between these two words the
way that I want them to be before we resize the image as a whole. So I am just gonna click on
this resize handle right here and just drag it out to
make this word bigger. And I'm gonna come up here
and click on what's up, and then just grab the resize handle and make this a little bit smaller. And you really just have all the power to mess around with the proportions, the size, the placement to get it the way that you want it to be. Okay, so to me, that looks perfect. I really like the way that that looks and I really think slash hope that my mom likes the way
that that looks as well. We'll see, fingers crossed. So what I'm gonna do
now is just simply click and drag over both of these words. And now, I'm gonna come back down here towards the bottom right-hand corner and I am gonna select weld. And for those who may not know, what weld does is
actually permanently fuses all those letters, all
those words into one. It really becomes sort
of an image more or less. So since we have our design the
way that we want it to look, what we're gonna do now is create somewhat of a
template for our actual rug. So the way that I'm gonna do that is coming over here to the
left-hand side of the page and selecting shapes, and I'm gonna select square. There we go. And what I'm wanting
to do with that square is to make it the same size
and shape as our actual rug. So to do that, what I'm gonna do is make sure that that square is selected, which it is. And I am gonna come up here
to the top of the canvas, right here where it says size. And the first thing that I'm gonna do is click on this little
padlock right here. What that padlock does
is locks the proportions of whatever shape you have selected. We do not want those proportions locked. We want to change those proportions to make it more of a rectangular shape. So I'm gonna select that to unlock it. And the tag on our rug says that it's 18 inches by 30 inches. So what I'm gonna do is
come over here to the width, select those numbers that are in there, delete those out and type
in 30, and then hit enter, and then just come over here to height, clear out those numbers as well, and then type in 18 and hit enter. Now, what we have to do now is come back down here towards
the bottom left-hand corner, and then just zoom out a little bit. I am also gonna right click this rectangle and then select send it to back. Now, just for visual purposes, what I'm gonna do is come up here towards the top left-hand
corner of the screen. And I'm gonna change the color of this to like a light brown. I'm gonna click this
brown color right here. And now what we're gonna do is just simply resize this design until the size looks right on our mat. All right, there we go. That is a virtual representation of what our finished
project should look like if everything goes
according to plan, that is. so we don't need this brown rectangle as a size template anymore. So what I'm gonna do is just select it and then I can select
this red X right here in the top left-hand corner. Now, if you have a 12 inch by 24 inch mat, you can go ahead and click on make it and then move on to the next step. But for those who do not have
a 12 inch by 24 inch mat, I did not want to exclude you all. I wanted to show you all how
you all can make a mat as well. Now, since our design is too large to put it onto one 12 inch by 12 inch mat, what I'm doing is cutting it in half. I'm splitting or slicing that into half and putting one half onto one mat and the other half onto another. And the way that I'm doing this is by using the slice feature
in Cricut Design Space. So I am just gonna come over here to the left-hand side of the page, click on shapes, and open up a square. Now, even though this is
a 12 inch by 12 inch mat, the largest size image
that you can cut out on it is 11 and a half inches
by 11 and a half inches. So what I want to do is make this square 11 and a half inches by
11 and a half inches. And the way that we're gonna do that is by selecting this square. And then coming back up here
to the top of the canvas where it says size, I'm gonna delete out those numbers and then change that to 11.5. Hit enter. And since this padlock is locked and since it's keeping
those proportions intact, it went ahead and changed
the height for me as well to 11 and a half inches. So there we go. I'm now gonna use that square
to slice our design into half. This way, we'll know that
each half of our design is gonna fit onto one of our mats. What I want to do now is simply click and drag over the square
and over our design. And then I'm gonna come down here towards the bottom right-hand
corner and select slice. I can now click our square, move it out of the way. I can delete it if I'd like, I can also click our design and move that out of the way as well. And what's left behind is simply
the remnants of that square that we sliced through. So I'm just gonna select this and then I can just click the red X or just simply click
delete on our keyboard. They'll do the same thing. But then as you can see, this design is now sliced into two. So really, all we need to do is cut out each half
onto one of these mats and then combine them before
we apply them to our mat. But as far as Cricut Design Space goes, I'm gonna come up here towards
the top right-hand corner, select make it. And as you can see right here, our designed to split
between these two mats. So all I'm gonna do now is come down here towards
the bottom right-hand corner, select continue. For our materials, what I'm gonna do is come up here and select browse all materials. And I'm gonna search for premium vinyl. Now, obviously, since we are making
stencils out of this vinyl, it does not matter what
color your vinyl is. The reason I grabbed
these two shades of gray is simply because I don't foresee myself using these colors very often. So that's why I grabbed these today. Okay, so we have both of
our designs cut out now. So what I want to do is
just flip our mat over and actually peel the
mat away from the vinyl instead of the other way around. This just helps to prevent any damage from happening to the actual vinyl. I am just gonna trim
off the bottom section of both sheets of vinyl
where there was no cuts made and save those sections for
future projects if I need them. Now, when it comes to
weeding out our designs, we've got to think about
this in reverse, right? We're used to removing
out all the excess vinyl and leaving behind our design, but what we need to do now, since we're creating a stencil, is remove all of our design and leave behind everything else. Now, for those who may not have noticed, the style of font that I
used for today's project actually has little streaks
inside of the letters, which typically could
look really, really cool, but not for what we're
doing with today's project. So what I'm doing is when
I'm weeding out this design, these streaks are definitely coming up with the rest of the letters. All right, so here is our stencil so far. I am so excited about this, you guys. Now, if you'll notice, there is a small half inch
strip right here next to the R and right here on the other side of the E. And that's the norm with Cricut. They leave that small margin there just to prevent the machine from accidentally cutting over
onto the actual cutting mat, which this is no big deal whatsoever. All we need to do is grab a paper cutter or a pair of scissors
and just trim that off. All right, so now, I'm
applying my transfer tape. Again, I am using this masking tape, transfer tape that I picked
up at ShopAuntieTay.com. The link for that will be down
in the description box below. But if you're wanting to use
just whatever you have at home, that is perfectly fine. However, I do recommend
that it's not very sticky. You want something with
a light tack to it. And for me, this is perfect. What I'm doing is just getting
a really rough estimate of how long our actual design is, and then I'll sort of
rip off the masking tape. I'm gonna flip it over,
sticky side facing up. And I'm gonna apply our designs this way, just by putting it straight down onto the transfer tape like this. Now, just keep in mind though
that this is all reversed. So the first part of the design would go down on your right-hand side. And the last part of the design would go down on your left. That way, whenever you
apply the transfer tape down onto your doormat with
the sticky side facing down, it will read the right way Okay, so now that that's applied down onto our transfer tape, I'm just grabbing our scraper tool and really kind of burnishing down to make sure it's really good and adhered to that transfer tape. So now, I'm gonna pick out a corner until I get the backing paper to lift up. Just like that. And then just slowly pull it away, making sure that there
are no pieces of vinyl that are pulling up with it. All right, so hopefully you can see the way that this will
read once it's all done. I don't know if you can see
through that transfer tape or not on camera. But now what I'm doing is just grabbing the
other half of our design. And I can kind of see
through the backing paper of the design, so I can kind of see where the edges are, and I can kind of line it up that way. Okay, so that should be good. So I'm just grabbing my scraper tool again and then just burnishing
over the back side of this. Now just kind of picking out a corner until you can get the backing paper to lift up off of the vinyl. All right, so there we go. So this is what will be the front side once we remove that transfer tape, and here is the backside. All right, so now here is our doormat. I'm just taking a small
section of that transfer tape and I'm literally just gonna go through and blot over top of this mat. I want to make sure if there are any loose particles or fibers that those come up and off
before we apply our design. Now obviously, you could even use a lint roller
for this if you wanted to. All right, so now it's
time to apply our decal. Now, again, I'm not sure if this is
visible on camera or not. I am able to see in real life through this masking
tape, transfer tape some, at least enough to be able
to line this up correctly. But really what you're
wanting to do with this is just line it up center on the mat. Now, just one word of caution. I would not be applying it down to the mat and then picking up and moving it because you will be able to do that, but you do not want to do that. Each time you do that, that vinyl will become
less and less sticky because of the fibers of the mat. And I just highly recommend doing a one and done
placement if possible. So what I'm doing again is
just grabbing our scraper tool and then just really
burnishing over top of this, making sure that that vinyl
is as adhered as possible. Okay, so now, once you have
it burnished down fairly well, what you're gonna want to do is just to slowly start peeling back one of the corners of the transfer tape. You want all that vinyl to
be laying down on to the mat. All right. So now that our vinyl is
adhered to our doormat, what I'm doing now is actually taking that
transfer tape yet again and going around and taping
off around the stencil. All right. So once you have
everything on your doormat covered up except for your stencil, what you're going to want
to do is actually very, very carefully move this outside. Now, it will help if
you have a poster board or some kind of a foam core
board underneath of your mat to help keep everything in
place as you move it outside. But otherwise, you just have
to go very, very slowly, very carefully, and try to hold this as
level and even as possible. So I ended up giving the mat just one really good coat of Flex Seal. When spraying it, you want to try and spray
directly over top of the stencil with the nozzle pointed straight
down towards the ground. You really want to avoid
spraying it at an angle to keep your design as crisp as possible. So I waited about 15 minutes or so before I pulled off the stencil because the Flex Seal was
already at least 60 to 70% dry, and I really didn't want to risk it fusing my stencil down to the mat. Now, this part is totally optional, but I picked up this Rust-Oleum Never Wet Liquid Repelling System
at Dollar Tree last year. And I really just wanted to see how it would do on an outdoor mat. Now, I haven't been
able to test out the mat since applying it, so I really can't tell
you if it worked or not. But another option that I highly recommend is a clear UV resistant sealant, which should prolong the life
of your mat even further. And here is the final result. (upbeat pop music) You guys, I would absolutely love to know what you all thought of today's project down in that comments section below. And if you liked it, please consider stamping that
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for watching today's video. I am so grateful for each and
every single one of you all. And until next time, stay crafty. (upbeat pop music)
