#paintedrug

Full on Monet is the most apt descriptor for this week's finished product, the painted rug (and maybe 90% of all DIY work come to think of it). Well, maybe not full-on. Partial Monet, let's say. I painted a rug this weekend and it took FOREVER and then I modified the failed mini caramel cheesecakes by making a totally different kind of cheesecake that also has caramel in it and it's SO GOOD. And really easy. Which is good because the rug was not easy, at all. (Easy as cake is not a thing.) 

Coffee Toffee No-Bake Cheesecake

(That ridiculous name is mine because I'm considering this my own recipe though the base comes from here.)

Crust:

3-4 c chocolate cookies crushed - these are the best but usually impossible to find. I used Oreos w/ the filling scraped off.

3-4 T melted butter

1/4 c brewed coffee

Filling:

16 oz cream cheese

1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip

1/4 c sugar

1/3 c + 5 T melted caramel

1 T vanilla

Springform pan is usually your best bet for cheesecake but this could easily be made in a store-bought crust too. Preheat oven to 350 and grease your pan. Combine crushed cookies and melted butter directly in pan until crumbs are coated. Then pat out till you've covered bottom of pan and a little bit up the sides. While I was patting out crust, I noticed the coffee pot in front of me with fresh-ish coffee and thought, I love coffee, I wonder what would happen if I added this and I poured directly from the pot onto the crust (I'm estimating it was about 1/4 cup). This saturated the crumbs completely but since you're baking it, it doesn't matter. Bake at 350 for 12 min.

While the crust is baking, heat caramel. Because I haven't been so successful making caramel in the past, this time I decided to use the Trader Joe's Fleur de Sel caramel candies that I had in the back of my fridge. I unwrapped about 12 or so and put them in a sauce pan with 1/2 c heavy cream on very low heat. Keep stirring until the candies start to melt and then they'll blend with the cream easily.

Once caramel is liquid consistency and crust is done, set both aside to cool. In mixing bowl, beat softened cream cheese, 1/4 c sugar, and T vanilla until soft and well combined. Add caramel (ideally, it's cool but mine wasn't completely and it still blended fine). Then fold in the tub of Cool Whip.

Pour cheesecake filling into crust and use a spatula to even out top. Then I took some more of the caramel and dropped spoonfuls onto the top of the cheesecake and then marbled it using a knife.

Refrigerate to set. I left mine in overnight but 4-5 hours is standard for a no bake cheesecake. To give it a little extra flavor and texture, I chopped 3 Skors bar (any toffee bar would work) in my food processor and used as garnish.

The coffee in the crust is subtle as is the caramel in the cheesecake but the combined flavors - coffee, chocolate, caramel, cheesecake - complement each other well and the consistency is perfect. (Mine looked a little soft when I took it out of the fridge so I put it in the freezer for an hour before garnishing and that set it for good; it was very easy to cut.)

This caramel cheesecake kicks the other caramel cheesecake's ass.

Painted Rug

I kind of ruined the inexpensive Ikea area rug I had in my living room a couple weeks ago. Ruin might be too strong; while I avoided spraying gold paint onto it, I did not avoid stepping on cardboard covered in gold spray paint and then tracking that onto the rug with my bare feet. Whoops. I always intended to get a nicer area rug and decided a painted rug would be a good in-between solution and also give me design ideas for the final selection. It's hard to find a plain beige/white/tan rug that is decent sized but also cost effective enough to potentially destroy. I ordered my rug online from Home Depot, hence the 10 days lead time. If you do this project, don't order your rug online. It would've been very helpful to see the rug in person before I determined if I could paint it. Oh well.

There are numerous painted rug tutorials floating around online; I read a few (and this one was my original inspiration) but didn't adhere too strictly to any one. From research, I decided a wall stencil would be more effective than a craft stencil (bigger and sturdier) and found a variety to choose from at J Boutique on Amazon (bonus: the stencil was eligible for Prime). I knew I also wanted repositionable adhesive for the stencil and another can of Benjamin Moore color sample latex interior paint. You use a lot of paint so the cheaper, the better. I would've added fabric medium to the paint to avoid it making the rug stiff but Michael's was sold out and fortunately, my rug was thick enough that the paint didn't overwhelm it.

Saturday, I picked up all of my materials. At Michael's, I did get adhesive and a variety bag of cheap bristle and sponge brushes so I'd have options. This was kind of dumb as cheap brushes wear quickly and this rug was a marathon of a weekend project. Next time, I'll get five or six nice sponge brushes.

5' X  8' - It's quite a nice rug.

I taped off the borders with blue painter's tape so I didn't have to put down a drop cloth or risk my design running off the rug. Then I had to measure. I hate measuring but a rug of that size plus the fact that I'd chosen a repeating pattern meant I had to plan out the grid before I could start painting. It was a hassle and I was only mildly successful but there are no blatant errors so I'll call it good.

I tested the stencil on a piece of cardboard to determine if I should use a sponge or bristle brush and bristle was cleaner but took twice as long. Then it occurred to me it would be way more useful to do this test on the rug itself so I flipped up a corner and used both brushes. And then I panicked.

The rug is actually very, very ribbed. The stencil doesn't lay even a little flat and I had minimal control over where the paint went inside the stencil. I freaked out when I pulled the stencil up and the painted lines weren't sharp. BUT I had the rug and everything else so I decided to go for it anyway. I started at the left top, sprayed the back of my stencil with adhesive, waited a minute for it to get tacky, and stuck it to the rug.

Then I started painting. Some of the tutorials advise that you go slow at first till you get a handle on your technique. My technique was I'm pretty sure this project is doomed so what the hell. I used the brush for the first three diamonds across the top but when that took FOREVER, I switched to the sponge and it was much faster if less precise. When I was done painting the first stencil, I held my breath and peeled it off and amazingly, it worked. The lines are not super clean but with the texture of the rug, it's unavoidable and when you look at it overhead, you can hardly tell. There was not a discernible difference between using the brush and sponge so I decided sponge was best, especially when I saw this.

5' X  8' - this may have been a dumb idea.

It takes about 30 min to do one full stencil with the sponge and almost twice that with the brush. After each stencil was done, I'd peel it off, spray the back with more adhesive, restick it and keep going. I moved left to right and top to bottom.

I painted and painted and painted.

Pattern starts to emerge.

I used Benjamin Moore Juniper which is a dark teal with a little more green than blue. I love it and I'm really glad I didn't go with a lighter color  like I'd originally planned.

The stencil takes a toll on the sponges as the plastic edges cut into them and shred them and about halfway down the rug, I'd run through all my small sponges. I tried one of the cheapo brushes but the flimsiness was no match for the thick paint and textured fabric so I got out a regular nicer paintbrush and used that for the rest of the rug.

Middle sponge was best. Sponge on right was too big and wasted a lot of paint. Paintbrush on left is teeny tiny and what I used for full bottom half of the rug. *sigh*

The rug absorbs a TON of paint which is why it's faster to use the sponge as applying paint that way is almost like dyeing it. With a brush, you're painting on the color and it requires a lot of paint.

Each dip into the paint can covered half of one line.

Finally, with only a few hiccups in the pattern placement, I was at the end.

You were a bear.

Best angle.

The paint dries really fast but I want to leave it alone for another 12 hours or so and then Scotch Guard it before I move furniture back onto it.

I actually really like it a lot. Also, I handpainted that sucker.

Tips for painting a rug:

1. Pick your rug in person so you can be sure it's flat enough to paint. I'm happy with this because for my living room, I want something that actually resembles a rug and not a mat just because it'd be easier to paint. But if I did it again, I'd choose a flatter rug.

2. Pick a smaller rug, especially the first time. I wanted an area rug but it probably would've been better to try this on a throw rug for the kitchen.

3. Ideally pick a design that has more painted area than not. Again, it's what I wanted but one of the reasons this took so long is that a stencil of a thin lined pattern is a lot more detailed and time consuming.