You Could Make That: freezer paper stencils

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

PATIO PILLOWS

We're in a drought here in SE Wisconsin, so the gardens are doing okay as long as you water them every other day. But they are NOT thriving! There's just nothing like rain water to make a garden grow. The grass is burned out to a whitish yellow, the flower blooms are smaller, and the rabbits are eating everything in sight. They're thirsty too and I suppose my garden flowers give them something juicy to munch on. Fortunately they have stuck with eating only two types of flowers in the garden (snapdragons and mallow) and the rest don't seem too attractive to them. So it was time to bring some artificial flowers/color to the patio.

I've posted about freezer paper stencils in the past, so you can see more examples here and here. But all you need to do for these pillows is:

1. Cut a free-form flower in your freezer paper. Throw the center "flower shape" away. Then iron the "flower frame" (shiny side down) onto your fabric choice. You can cut any shape into your freezer paper. Plus, this is something even small children could do!

2. Take some fabric paint and a sponge, or in my case, a can of indoor/outdoor spray paint. I really like Valspar brand from Lowes - it has a really nice cap option and quite a few colors too. I've never used spray paint on fabric before, but this paint is durable, just what the pillows need to be!

3. Spray an even coat all over the stencil area.

4. Gently pull away the freezer paper once the paint is not shiny wet.

5. Ta Da! You have a nice, crisp stenciled flower for your patio pillow top! Flower shapes like this remind me of the 60s!

I did another one with a circle of freezer paper ironed in the center, to mask off that area.

6. Then just sew them to a backing fabric, plain or fancy, put your pillow form inside, and sew it shut.

7. Then invite some good friends over for a craft night and make some more!

8. Or . . . invite some friends over for a craft night to make ANYTHING!

That's what I'm doing. Four of my book group friends will be arriving tonight with hammers and pine planks in hand for a summer evening of creating! We'll save stenciled pillows for another night - tonight we're going to make quite a racket in the backyard with the sound of 5 hammers and my circular saw piercing the darkness!

Saturday, February 18, 2012

HORCHOW INSPIRATION AND KNOCK-OFF PILLOWS

We have matching brown love seats in our family room, each one with matching brown pillows. This long room has windows at either end, but it still tends to have low light. So today, I tried to bring more light into the room by making pillow covers in off-white denim and then "embellishing" them using stencils, tape, and brown fabric paint. My inspiration came from these beautiful Horchow pillows - minus the high price!

I love all of these, but especially the number and "grain sack" pillows.

French Laundry Home Pillows - Horchow

$73 - $136

They also had a great monogram pillow and another number pillow.

French Laundry Home "Spring Garden" Pillows
$115 - $190

Then I walked past the entrance to Pottery Barn and saw this "U.S. Mail" bin and I thought, "That would be perfect on a pillow top"!

(I might have to try making a "bin" like that too!)

So. To begin.

I washed and dried the denim and then began tearing it into 22 in squares for the pillow tops. The number pillow was done with a freezer paper stencil. If you've never used freezer paper for stenciling you should give it a try. It's so easy and works beautifully! As a matter of fact, freezer paper stencils turn out a lot better than traditional stencils because the stencil is "tacked down" onto your fabric and won't move around while you're applying the paint. I've read that they can be used over and over too!

I think black might look more authentic as a french laundry fabric, but since the love seats are brown, I used a dark brown fabric paint. For the number pillow, I used this Vintage Typography from The Graphics Fairy.

After enlarging the typography graphic and tracing it onto freezer paper, I carefully cut it out and ironed it onto the center of the 22" square.

Then, applied paint using a stencil brush . . .

and pulled away the freezer paper! Works like a charm!

Next, I used a stencil I've used for some other projects - like the table runner shown here.

I bought this stencil about a year ago on Etsy. It's well-used!

Using the same brown fabric paint - this one was quick and easy!

Then, on to the monogram pillow top. Using painters' tape, I taped off some "grain sack" stripes - a wider one in the middle and two skinny ones on either side. Then using the stencil brush and the same fabric paint, I filled in the stripes between the tape strips.

For the monogram, lay a piece of tape horizontally across the center of the pillow so the monogram is level.

I used very inexpensive cardboard letter stencils . . .

. . . and placed my husband's initial along with mine on either side of the stripes.

For pillow #3, I used the design from the mail bin shown above, added some heavy duty upholstery strapping, and a button and loop.

And that's it!

Four new pillows, inspired by Horchow and Pottery Barn, for the price of some denim - a far cry from the $100 plus price tag!

Now, what's next?

This ottoman that sits in front of the love seats will be needing an update also. I posted about making this ottoman here it was also inspired by Horchow! The fabric was great when the love seats and pillows were solid brown. But, I think it would look great with a new off-white denim slipcover . . .