Money Saver!

So when I originally decorated our nursery before Declan had even arrived I purchased a $70 4'x6' shaggy green area rug for the floor.  My house is 100% hardwood so I wanted one little area of soft fluffiness for baby to play on!  Loved the rug (dearly actually) until Indiana ate an entire package of bird suet from the neighbor's yard and ever so politely, hocked it up all over the rug.  My parents own a professional carpet and upholstery restoration business and even they couldn't dissolve the putrid, lard vomit from the fluffy fibers.  I was heartbroken as I surrendered my splurgy purchase to the trash.  I thought "I'll buy another one!"  So off to Target I went to replace the rug.  But alas, thanks to outsourcing product production to other countries where people are hand-stitching these things, NONE of the other rugs felt the same or were exactly the same color!  Grrrr!  "Ok," I thought, "I'll find some other type of rug for the room."  I began shopping and was, frankly, astounded at the cost of area rugs!  Even a faux-shag rug online about the same size as the 4'x6' was pricing out at around $400.00!  Ummm, yeah, that's beyond "splurging" for me!
I went out one evening for a run to Marshall's just to poke around and was thinking about the rug.  I looked through their selection and didn't find anything appropriate for a baby's room.  (I don't think he'd appreciate a $250.00 elaborate Oriental).  I had resorted, in my mind, that I would return to Target and just buy one of the same $70 shaggy rugs despite their INFERIORITY to the original one I had purchased. 

Then, as I strolled through the bathroom accessories aisle, I came across these most adorable bath mats!  In a myriad of colors, they were the softest, most fun chenille/microfiber blends!  I thought "what an awesome rug this would be if they made large sizes!"  Some quick research on my phone (God I love technology!) and I realized these were strictly a bath item.  I sat there holding one, falling more and more in love with the feel of this bath mat and the idea came to me:  purchase several, somehow sew them together and have a super soft, fun, decorative and 100% machine washable area rug! 

Each mat was $20 or less.  There were several different brands each carrying different colors.  I chose colors that match his room decor, brought the mats home and began playing with different patterns on the floor.  Because I had purchased different brands, some of the mats were slightly different sizes which made things a little more complicated.  Eventually, I came up with this design which required cutting a large green rug into a small square and trimming about 2" off the end of the brown rug to make it equal size to the yellow and blue rugs. I purchased a large sewing needle and some soft yellow yarn at Michael's.  Slowly and carefully over the course of a week or so, I sewed each rug's finished edge to the finished edge of another rug.  I made sure that all outer edges of the rug were un-cut to prevent fraying.  The edges I did have to cut I made sure I cut a little LESS than actually required so I could sew a little deeper into the edge to prevent fraying there.  So here is the breakdown:

5 chenille/microfiber bath mats:  $20.00 each = $100.00 total
yarn and sewing needle:  $10.00 = $110.00 total
6'x6' size in a typical area rug would normally cost about $350.00 or more!
already successfully machine washed twice saved about $75.00 in professional cleaning costs!

My only suggestion for those who attempt on their own:  wash each mat individually before sewing together.  My yellow rugs are just EVER so slightly less yellow because I washed it for the first time after it was sewn together so the brown and green mats' colors affected the brightness of the yellows.  Not nearly enough to be a problem or require a replacement.  But you are talking to a woman who didn't replace the original green rug with the same thing because the color was different and the softness wasn't the same...I notice these things!  Good luck moms!