What better way to welcome guests into your home for the holidays than with a Gingerbread House Doormat?! For this project we’re using cardstock as a stencil and the tiling feature in Silhouette Studio Business Edition, which allows you to create large scale projects. Since a standard doormat typically measures around 18 inches by 30 inches, this is a perfect project to utilize the tiling feature!
Supplies Needed:
- Silhouette Cameo® or Silhouette Portrait®
- Silhouette Studio®
- Silhouette Cutting Mat, not necessary if you use the roll-feeder
- Silhouette Cutting Blade
- 6 sheets of 12 by 12-inch Cardstock
- Spray Adhesive
- Tape, optional but helpful
- Outdoor Spray Paint
- Rug
- Design ID #305035 by Tommy and Tilly Paper Design
Step One: Formatting the Design
1. Open the design in Silhouette Studio. Our mats dimensions measure 30 inches wide by 16.5 inches tall. Increase the width of the house to approximately 22 inches and the height of the house to 15.5 inches. *Adjust the dimensions to fit your mat of choice! This is going to distort the original dimensions of the house a bit, but the design still looks great and the scale is better suited for a doormat.
2. Now using the Drawing Tools, create small circles around the house to look like snowflakes! The sizes can be irregular and the placement random. Press and hold down the shift key to make perfect circles.
3. Now select all the design elements and group them by right-clicking and selecting “group.”
4. Open up the Media Layout Set Up Menu. (The icon is located at the bottom of the Silhouette Tools bar on the right-hand side. It looks like a square with and uneven bottom and a few triangles are within the square.)
5. Check the Show Media Layout Split Screen Option at the top of the menu window.
6. Check Tiling Active box.
7. The default will automatically separate the design into tiles.
8. With this design, it will cut it into 6 different pieces.
9. With your design ready to go, send to your machine. Place a sheet of cardstock onto your cutting mat and load into the machine. Repeat this process for each of the 6 tiles.
Step Two: Creating your Doormat
1. When the design has been cut, Weed the negative space so you’re just left with the house portions and the small “snowflake” circles.
2. Using spray adhesive, spray the back of each house piece and stick to your doormat. I started with the top center piece and worked my way out.
* You may want to reinforce some of the seams with tape.
4. Now that your stencil is adhered to the rug you’re ready to apply the spray paint! We’re using a special kind of paint that is suited for outdoor wear and tear. You can use any paint, but we’d recommend sealing it with a coating of some sort to avoid any fading or using Flex Seal.
5. Remove the cardstock to reveal your cozy Gingerbread House Doormat!
Heidi
December 8, 2019
Sorry, but where was the vinyl used in this project for the stencil? It says you used vinyl for the stencil in the opening paragraph, but it’s missing from the instructions?
Silhouette
December 9, 2019
Apologies! We ended up using six pieces of 12 x 12 inch cardstock for the stencil. We tried vinyl first, but because of the texture of the doormat, the vinyl wouldn’t stick to the mat. So we used spray adhesive to temporarily adhere the cardstock to the mat for a stencil! Hope that helps!
Victoria
December 12, 2019
I was trying to find the tool used to take the image and separate it but I don’t seem to have the version you have although mine is fully updated. What software did you use?
Silhouette
December 26, 2019
You need to have Silhouette Studio Business Edition or higher to access the Tiling Feature.