Painted Stripes- A Jute Rug Tutorial

So I have been meaning to post this tutorial for quite some time and figured that this holiday weekend I'll go ahead and get it posted. :)
I was inspired by the chevron rug on thehouseofsmiths.com so they definitely deserve some credit! Here's their project: http://www.thehouseofsmiths.com/2011/04/chevron-painted-rug-from-ikea.html
For our rug, I started off with an Egeby natural color jute rug from Ikea that is 5'5" x 7' 7" since that perfectly fits our tiny dining nook. At $99, it wasn't super cheap but any nice, similarly heavy duty rug would cost a few hundred at the cheapest so it was a good deal. I taped off the edges with painters tape since it has a nice natural colored cotton border bound on the edges that I wanted to keep perfectly clean. If you use a different jute rug, try to find one with a thick rubber backing or lay it out on thick plastic or a waterproof drop cloth since the paint may bleed through if there isn't a thick backing. That's really a great feature of the Egeby and it really makes it worth the cost!
The next step was to paint the base color. I used something that we already had since I wanted a neutral background color-- Specifically it's Glidden interior latex flat in Ruffled Feathers which is a slightly grey white. Using a small foam roller, I applied a generous coat of paint over the entire surface of the rug then let it dry for two days. It will really suck up the paint so be prepared!
For the stripes, I used Frog Tape to tape off 6-inch sections so that I would be able to get 8 green stripes for a Dash and Albert feel. For the paint, I used a quart of a Martha Stewart kelly green paint (cant't for the life of me remember the name!) and again I applied the paint generously so that I wouldn't need a second coat. I removed the tape while the paint was still wet and left the rug to dry another two days.
If you love the look you could definitely leave the rug as is, but I decided to follow the lead of my inspiration and sand off a bit of the paint for a beachy feel. To get the effect I was going for I used our Dremel multi-tool with the sandpaper attachment and it literally took 10 minutes the sand the entire rug to the point of perfection!
This project was super easy and the results are beautiful. I am now considering painting chevrons onto our smaller kitchen rug but haven't decided on colors yet. I would love to do black and white but the border is more chocolate brown so I'm not sure that would match.