DIY Birthday Cake Door Mat

We just finished two birthdays in one week here. What a party.

I always try to deck out the house after my almost-birthday-child goes to bed the night before their big day, with balloon avalanches and other fun surprises. And of course I am always on the lookout for simple, festive decorations with a big impact—or even better—reusable decorations that become family birthday traditions.

We made a couple of the fun, reusable kind this year.

After a year or two of intending to do it, the kids and I finally put together a balloon wreath from this tutorial (FYI, I used a 16-inch foam wreath form and 4 bags of 72 balloons).

And this year I came up with another new surprise that I made during one nap time, that’s right, just one, and that I plan to use for years to come.

Say hello to our new birthday door mat.

Very fun for placing outside to welcome party guests, or inside at the bedroom door of the birthday honoree, which is what we did this year.

Do you have any favorite birthday traditions?

Now, down to business.

For the mat,
I started with a blank door mat I picked up at Target last week for $10
and whatever bottles of spray paint I had in the garage.
I used a roll of painter’s tape (regular masking tape would have done the job just fine too!)
And I highly recommend a roll of painter’s paper.

Masking off the cake layers was super simple. Even the more complex shapes took just a little extra manipulating. Then I just sprayed on the paint nice and heavy

I had all kinds of fun layering paint colors. I found that if I wanted a color extra bright, like my pink stripe, I painted a layer of white first, followed by the final color.

What do you think? Not a bad way to be welcomed to the party, right? What other birthday traditions do you do?

Tagged as: Giverslog tutorials