We couldn’t decide between a few different geek welcome mat ideas, so we’re making ’em all.
Well, we’re making four – one for each of the front and back doors, and one for the two garage entrances (weird old house, lots of doors for a tiny place). We started with Star Trek and Legend of Zelda, and will probably have Breaking Bad and some kind of zombie themed door mats coming soon. Or maybe Doctor Who and Portal. Decisions are hard.
To make the first two, we started with ONE large door mat, purchased for $9 or so from IKEA. It seemed HUGE for our small porch, so we cut it in half, which makes it about the size of a standard smaller door mat. Here’s a little collage of the process to make the Star Trek mat.
Step 1: We printed out a Star Trek emblem. We wanted it big, so printed it across two sheets of paper.
Step 2: We traced the image onto clear contact paper, thinking it would just easily stick to the mat. Not so. We still had to…
[Step 3] pin it down.
Step 4: Spray paint! Then peel the emblem off. At first we were going to leave it plain like the picture above (subtle geek?), but decided that it needed the full symbol. To make the middle section we just traced that part of the symbol on more contact paper and re-did the steps.
Here it is! This one lives at our back door, since our front door is already red. It’s been there for about a week (if you follow us on Instagram you saw the real-time on when we made it), and so far still looks like new.
Next up we started the Legend of Zelda welcome mat. We wanted to try a different process here, so instead of spray painting we just used regular acrylic craft paint and a sponge brush. Basically the exact same technique we used on our Legend of Zelda DIY laptop desk. The Triforce stencil is hand-drawn on a piece of cardboard, and cut out.
The picture above is after one light coat. We went over it again just to touch up. Super easy.
Here it is at the front door. For some reason we could NOT get good pictures of these mats, so will try again at some point and maybe update the post. 🙂
What do you think? Any suggestions on what we should make for the other two geeky welcome mats? TARDIS? Companion cube? Zombies? Tread Lightly? Something else?
Trish says
March 17, 2014 at 7:21 pmIf you made Portal, wouldn’t you need to make 2??? Except then you’d never get anything done, what with always falling back and forth between front and back doors. Never mind, just make one to be safe!
ournerdhome says
March 18, 2014 at 10:02 pmWoah. You just gave us a GREAT idea! We were more thinking the Aperture Science logo, but doing two portals would be awesome! Hmm… now the geek welcome mat idea list is growing, haha. 🙂
Bubba says
March 19, 2014 at 3:02 pmPut a one inside, and one outside
LizZD says
February 19, 2015 at 9:27 amHAHA…Then the door would never need to be opened!…..But what about unwanted visitors!? They would just ..show up in your home!…You would never be safe from annoying neighbors, that “friend” you just can’t rid yourself of, or….THE INLAWS!……LOL
Such an awesome idea though 😀
ournerdhome says
February 19, 2015 at 4:50 pmHa! (PS: your jewelry is awesome)
LizZD says
February 19, 2015 at 5:34 pmAWWW Thanx ya!! 😀
Josh says
March 18, 2014 at 7:46 amMy concern is with the spray paint. Is it holding up well? My front porch gets quite a bit of rain & I’m worried that the colour would be tracked through my house. Have you experienced this?
Haley says
March 18, 2014 at 9:41 amThey make spray paint for exteriors that can stand up to all kinds of weather.
ournerdhome says
March 18, 2014 at 10:11 pmGood point. 🙂 The spray paint we used was just a regular Rustoleum, which says for indoors or outdoors, but maybe using specific exterior paint or floor paint will help with longevity.
Tamera says
March 18, 2014 at 7:50 pmI altered a door mat a year ago and used acrylic paint and spray paint. While it faded a bit from all the snow we got over the winter months, nothing was tracked into my apartment. Me thinks some new geeky mats may be on the docket for Spring!
ournerdhome says
March 18, 2014 at 10:07 pmMy main concern is the fading, because that means we might end up with a pink Star Trek welcome mat, haha.
ournerdhome says
March 18, 2014 at 10:06 pmHey there. Before we made the mats we did some googling around on spray painted door mats, and found promising results with people saying that they hold up well. For us, they’re definitely looking like new (one week in), but we don’t get any rain or snow here.
Lisa says
March 18, 2014 at 8:18 amSo cool; I love both of them! ^___^ I think a companion cube would be awesome too!
ournerdhome says
March 18, 2014 at 10:12 pmThank you! Companion cube is at the top of the list. 🙂
RaChil Luke says
March 18, 2014 at 3:51 pmI just bought a mat to DIY! How funny, you’re lucky, I couldnt find any plain ones, I went to 3 different stores! These turned out great! I think the star trek one is my favorite
ournerdhome says
March 18, 2014 at 10:15 pmYes! Why are plain mats so hard to find?? We had the exact same issue, which is why we ended up with a huge one cut in half, since that’s the only plain one we came across, haha.
Looking forward to seeing your DIY mat. 🙂
ejensen says
March 20, 2014 at 11:04 amThey came out really great! Did you end up liking one painting method over the other?
ournerdhome says
March 20, 2014 at 4:58 pmThank you! We both preferred the stippling method over the spray painting method – it gave more control. But spray painting was quicker!
Josh Sherman says
March 20, 2014 at 3:31 pmThese are great! My girlfriend and I are super Star Wars nerds so I was thinking the Rebel/Imperial symbols. Thanks for sharing your idea!!
ournerdhome says
March 20, 2014 at 5:01 pmThanks, Josh! Rebel/Imperial symbols are a great idea – if you end up making some, we’d love to see pics. We had them on our holiday wreath, and have been looking for good uses for them since then.
katie says
March 22, 2014 at 5:45 pmI l-o-v-e the Star Trek mat! It’s so amazing.
ournerdhome says
June 5, 2014 at 2:32 pmThank you, Katie! We are quite pleased how it turned out. 🙂
Candi says
April 4, 2014 at 8:43 pmDefinately a “Do Not Enter – Dead Inside” Walking Dead for Halloween would be cool.
ournerdhome says
June 5, 2014 at 2:33 pmOooh, that is a perfect idea. And goes along with our love for all things zombie!
Chrissa says
June 4, 2014 at 8:15 pmI’m thinking just “Bigger on the inside” in a TARDIS blue. You have *no* idea how many ideas are coming to me thanks to your site! Stoked! Thanks for the ideas!!!
ournerdhome says
June 5, 2014 at 2:34 pmPlease do this, Chrissa. The TARDIS needs a welcome mat 🙂 And send us pics when you are done!