Anyway, I’ve realized the Ikea rug makeover I posted a while ago has gotten several comments, and since most of them are asking for the stencil, I thought I’d do a mini update with the PDF file of the stencil. In case anyone is wondering how I did it, I just cut out the black part with some scissors and used masking tape to keep it in place. I repeated the pattern 5×7 times (I have the small sized rug, I believe there’s a bigger one).

So, click here to download the stencil!

UPDATE: I’ve added the stencil to DIY your own Moroccan rug in this other post.

I love the dark wood floors we have in our home. The problem is that, since they are so dark, they show every little bit of dust, especially in the living room, which gets a lot of traffic. So I started looking for a rug but they were all so expensive, and didn’t really convince me. After months of looking I found one at Ikea, the Erslev, which I liked both for the price and the color, but it was too… simple. Too solid. I wanted something with a pattern.

That’s when it hit me. I had seen somewhere on Apartment Therapy that a girl named Natalie had taken an Ikea rug and painted a pattern on it with fabric paint (the rug was woven cotton) with amazing results. I searched the web looking for the tutorial and when I found it, I realized she had used the same rug I had eyed at Ikea! So on my next trip I picked one up, made up the moroccan inspired pattern on the computer, printed it out and set to paint. It took me about 5h and it was oh-so-worth-it. Check it out!