This was a lot of fun to make! Don't know why the price of the carpeting is not listed, but ours was about $20. After folding the carpet lengthwise as directed and cutting the curved edge, I then folded the carpet shortwise and used the cut edge as a template rather than the trimmings; made it much more uniform, I think. After painting only a handful of the dashed lines, the paper stencil pretty much fell apart, so I made a new one using cardboard (from a cereal box, actually), and it worked much better. And finally, put newspaper beneath the mat before painting! Otherwise it soaks right through.
All in all though, a great project. Thanks Lowe's Creative Ideas team!