Craft Ideas for Carpet Squares

Whether you're redecorating your home or just happened to score a free book of carpet square samples, you may be wondering what you're going to do with them. After all, they're not big enough to really do anything with, right? Wrong. There are actually a few of great projects you make using carpet squares. The following are just a few of my favorite ideas and can be made with varying sizes of carpet squares.

Simple Art Project

This is a fun project for a preteen and a great way to redecorate her room on a budget. Select several shades or carpet squares along with several shades of fabric paint and a spool of satin ribbon, preferably white because it goes with everything. Your preteen can either create free-form images on the carpet squares or she can use stencils. For example, she might free-form the Japanese symbol for love and then use a stencil that says love under the symbol. Once the pieces have dried, hot glue satin ribbon to the backs so that they can be hung on walls, doorknobs or where ever else she might like to hang them.

Patchwork Bathroom Rug

You'd like a new rug for the bathroom, but really can't afford the plush rug you've been eying at the home interior store. However, you do have several plush carpet squares in that book your friend gave you. If the samples are big, cut them down into 4 inch squares and sew them together in a varying pattern. You can use as many or as few colors as you like. If you don't like the colors, use fabric dye to get the color you want.

Homemade Dog Food Mat

Have a small dog with small food bowls? Then why not use one of the larger carpet squares to create a food and water mat? You can use paint to add stencils to make the mat more pleasing to the eye or simply leave it as is using carpet tape to bind the edges so that Fido doesn't tear it to shreds.

Whether you need something for the wall or floor, carpet squares are a wonderful craft supply to have on hand. The next time you go to your local home improvement store ask if they have any old books headed for the trash can. After all, one person's trash is another person's craft project.