DIY Rug Art [ McGee and Co Inspired ]

I’m so excited to be blogging this DIY rug art today! I was so inspired when scrolling through McGee & Co and browsing their vintage rug art, that I had to try and DIY it!

First thing’s first, if you have frames that you can use at home, this project will be free! I didn’t have frames I could use and I wanted to replicate the existing frames as much as possible so therefore, I purchased these frames. Please keep in mind, that link will take you to Amazon Canada. If you’re from the US, here’s the link you want to go to.

Here’s my inspiration from Mcgee and Co

Shop List for DIY Rug

• Distressed Rug or Pillow
• Scissors
• Cheese Grater
• Exacto Blade
• Frames

I made my DIY rug art out of this runner I got from Homesense ( Canadian Homegoods ) a few years back and it had started to fall apart. Originally I was going to use my Kilm pillow but it was far too small for both of my frames.

So this runner was great! It just took a bit of elbow grease ( que in the cheese grater, exacto blade and scissors. )

Because I wanted to replicate the existing piece of art, I went to town on trying to distress and cut up my rug.

I started off by cutting my first square. Once I was happy with the design and size I traced the other square out. I made two, if you’re only making one, you can skip this step.

To distress your rug, you want to grate it and score it with your exacto blade. There is no right or wrong way. You can even cut holes in your rug if you want. If you look at the original piece that I’m trying to copy, it is pretty distressed and almost falling apart!

I used the cheese grater on the edges and the exacto blade on the rest of the rug.

After you’re happy with your rug, you can throw it in the wash and dryer for additional fraying. Because more holes and tears makes it look more vintage!

Here’s my Tiktok video to show a bit more in detail how I made my rug look more distressed and old.

If you do not have a rug or pillow at home you can use, here are some really pretty vintage kilm pillows on Amazon that you can use. Using a Kilm pillow you could actually skip most of the steps in this blog and it would look pretty cool!

But most importantly, are you ready to see the finished DIY Rug Art?!

It’s hard to photograph the distressing in the art. But it’s pretty amazing. The only downfall of this entire project is I wish I could somehow get the white backing a more cream or antique color. I toyed with the idea of staining it in tea or coffee, but I didn’t want there to be splotches, I wanted an even coverage. So I did order some cream spray paint and I’ll spray the backings once that comes in.

What do you think of the completed DIY rug art? Is this a project that you will attempt?