Step 1: Create the Mat Design

1: In order to be able to start our Design, we are going to access our Design  Space application and in there we are going to click on the + New Project Green button located on the top Right corner of our screen.

2: After we clicked in there, we are going to be able to access our Blank Canvas, in where we are going to start creating our Design:

3: We are going to use the Images functionality to search for snowflake and we are going to add it to the canvas:

4: We are also going to upload the mittens file using the upload.

After you added them to your canvas you should have:

5: We are going to ungroup the image and we are going to leave only the mitten that is showing with the heart:

6: We are going to add a border to the top part of our mitten, by using a rectangle:

7: We are going to duplicate the mitten (including the new border) 5 times in total and in each mitten we are going to add one letter related to the word: W I N T E R:

💡Tip: We are using the font that we previously installed in our device so it’s available in Design Space.

8: After adding the letter inside each mitten, we are going to use the slice functionality and slice them, in order to obtain:

9: we are going to add an square or rectangle and resize it based on our physical mat, in our case is 18” x 30” and we are also going to mimic the color of our mat:

💡Tip: We are using this rectangle just for design purposes, but is not going to be cut.

10: We are going to also write the word Hello, with the same font as the Winter letters and in order for the letters to unify between them we are going to weld them together:

11: We are going to place the mittens, the hello word and several snowflakes and also some circles over the rectangle and resize them so it fits nicely inside our rectangle, something similar to:

12: Before starting with the cut, since the size of the design is way bigger than our physician mats we need to split them in sections. 

At this point you have several options:

1- Attach the whole design together and split them in 4 (like in our case) if you have the 12” X 24” Mats.

• If you have the 12” x 12” Mats, you need to split them probably in 6 or even 8 sections to be able to cut them if the design is attached.

2- Do not attach the design and cut elements separately, the word Hello needs to be split if you have a 12” x 12” Mat.

We are going to use 12” x 24” Mats, so we decided to attach all our design and split it in 4 as follow:

We are going to split the Hello word first, by adding a rectangle over the word and rotating them and after that using the slice functionality:

Then we are going to place the word on the place that is going to be, and then using rectangles or squares and using the slice functionality we are going to proceed to split the design in 4 sections:

13: We are going to hide the rectangle that we used as a base, if we do not hide it, we are not able to start the cutting process.

Step 2: Cut the Designs 

1: After you are happy with the design, we are ready to save it, Click on Save button on the Right Top side of the screen and provide a name to your design and click on Save button.

2: We are going to click on the Make button to start configuring our materials!

3: You are going to be able to see one mat per section:

4: We are going to click on continue, and in there we are going to search for the vinyl type that we are going to use, in our case we are going to use stencil Vinyl:

Step 3: Weed The Designs

1: After the cut is done, you are going to unload the mat and we are going to remove the vinyl from the mat very gently

2: Before peeling, we are going to place all the 4 sections over our mat in order to identify which sections are the ones that we need to weed and we are going to hold the stencil with painters tape:

3: We are going to start weeding the parts that we are not going to use like the interior of the snowflakes and the circles:

4: Something that we prefer is to weed and paint one section at a time, in order to make sure that the design is well aligned.

You can use transfer tape to transfer the stencil over the design, or like in our case, we are just going to start peeling and placing the design over the mat:

After peeling the back of the stencil, we are going to use painters tape in order to secure our design to the mat:

OPTIONAL: We are going to paint each section independently, if you are going to do it like us, please go to STEP 4: Paint the design

If you are going to paint all the design together, please repeat the steps in order to add the stencil to the mats and secure each section with painters tape before start painting, when you are done, please continue with STEP 4

Step 4: Paint the Designs

1: We are going to start painting in white color our snowflakes, we are going to use a mix between round sponges brushes and paint brushes.

2: Then we are going to proceed with the mittens and the top of them. We are going to paint each mitten a different color, but this choice is up to you.

💡Tip: We are going to let them dry at least 30 minutes before applying the second coat, we are going to keep the stencil on its place for the second coat.

3: After applying the second coat, we are going to remove the stencil:

💡Tip: You can apply as many coats of the same paint as you want in order to obtain the saturation of the color that we like it.

4: We are going to start painting the second section, remember to follow the steps on STEP 3 in order to know how to apply the stencil to the mat:

As previously, we are going to apply coats with the stencil and then we can remove it in order to apply more coats as needed.

5: After the second section is done, we are going to continue with the third one following always the same process:

6: We are going to start painting the letters over our mittens, we are going to secure them with painters tape and in our case each letter is going to be in white color:

7: We are going to proceed with the fourth section, following the same process, with this section we need to make sure that the second part of the hello word are connected and aligned between each other:

7: We are going to continue with the last 3 letters that are going to be over the mittens:

8: After we removed all the stencils you should have something like:

9: Personally we considered that the O looks like an A, so we are going to fix it as follow:

And you can continue touching the color until you are happy with the coverage, we apply to all the colors 6 layers of color to make sure that they look consistent. For the smallest snowflakes we decided to transform them into stars since the detail was lost. 

10: It’s time to place your mat on your Entry door! You did it!!!!! Amazing job!