Four buck welcome mat.

Yesterday evening, Eugene & I had some fellow newlyweds from our church over for our weekly small group meeting {called The Cleaver’s}. It was the first time we’ve had a group of people over to the house & it was such a relief knowing that it was in a little better shape since they helped us move in – especially with the new roof & repaired/replaced bathroom ceiling. I know the house is still a massive work-in-progress, but it was so nice having people over. I really enjoy hosting friends at our house, and it’s been well over four months since we’ve be able to do so, making last night a real delight.

I even had some gorgeous rose blooms on display from my mom’s garden. So pretty in my dainty $0.79 Ikea vases. :)

Eugene & I picked a topic that’s not discussed very much {in our opinion}, the Holy Spirit. We had some good conversation and prayer together.

 

And we also snacked on a new recipe I tried – peanut butter & honey popcorn. I love to dip plain popcorn in melted peanut butter, so I thought  this recipe might be a good one to try. I purposely didn’t use any sugar, and it was plenty sweet.  {Oh, and I forgot the vanilla by accident.} It was decent, but a little soggy. Maybe it’s because I nixed the sugar? Not sure, but I think next time I think I’ll use less honey.

I hinted yesterday about two projects using blue paint; one of those was my attempt at a cheap welcome mat. I though it might be nice to have a fun personalized welcome mat for when our small group came to visit. I wanted something that would match my new fabric flower wreath, and it just so happened that I scored a free sample of Valspar paint a while back that was bright blue. I added some white to some of the paint, so I had two shades of blue to work with…

 

I bought this cheap-o door mat from Target for $3.99. Perfect for testing my {lack of} mad artistic skills.

 

I didn’t have any real game plan {big surprise}, so I just taped off a box in the center of the mat and then freehanded an “S” {for our last name} while the pup pouted because he wasn’t getting any attention…

Then I taped a box around that to make a painted frame…

The tape worked surprisingly well considering the mat had ridges. I then decided to tape off some stripes…

And came up with this finished product…

{Did you notice it in the pictures yesterday?}

The “S” kinda looks amateur & the paint might not hold up in rain, but heck, a four dollar welcome mat that took me maybe a half hour to make? Worth it.

At the very least, it’s better than my old, torn apart mat that was far from welcoming…

So what do ya think, does it look too much like a 4th grade art project? {How about an “A+” 4th grade art project? I’d take that!}

  

Isn’t it funny slightly annoying that once you finish one project, you immediately notice something else new to fix, i.e. that terribly chipped concrete strip under the door? Add it to the list. :/  It’s a good thing that I really do enjoy working on these projects!

 

Linked to: