Stenciled Pillow Covers

When my husband and I bought our couch 3 years ago, we had something very specific in mind: we wanted one with all of the features of his parent's couch. We had been saving and planning for this couch for a while, but when we were looking around in different furniture stores we couldn't find one that had everything that we wanted. When we mentioned this to them, my father in law quickly offered to sell us theirs, as they were looking for a new couch as well.

It seemed like the perfect solution! Though with used furniture there are often seems to be a price to pay.

I didn't want to get rid of our big fluffy pillows or pay to get new ones, so I turned to Tiffany's Shut Up and Sew post about Envelope Pillow Covers and hoped for the best.

Since the pillows are pretty large I was worried that I'd be spending a lot of money on fabric to try to cover them all. Especially since I want these covers to be pretty durable with a 2 year old constantly diving on them and a baby on the way. So I decided it was time to jump on the drop cloth trend.

I picked up a drop cloth from Lowes, which come in a creamy color. Since my wonderful couch is already a sea of beige, I wanted something much lighter, so I followed Miss Mustard Seed's notes on bleaching the drop cloth and got just what I was looking for. A light non-beige background all ready for some paint.

I measured my fabric following Tiffany's instructions, and cut it up. Now for the fun part.

I covered my table, laid out the front piece of fabric on the table, and covered it with this incredible Acacia Allover Stencil from Cutting Edge Stencils. I taped it lightly to the table (just a few pieces) so that it wouldn't shift at all as I rolled on my paint. (Does anyone else think it's incredibly ironic that I put a "dropcloth" under my dropcloth fabric, which I was painting on purpose? No? Just me? Okay.)

I got DecoArt's SoSoft Fabric Paint in Prussian Blue and rolled it onto my sponge roller. I then turned to the drop cloth.

I rolled the paint on in light layers. It took about 3 coats of paint to get the depth of color that I wanted, and I discovered that with the fabric paint I didn't need to blot off as much paint as if I was doing the walls. It's a bit thick and took more paint to get the coverage that I was looking for.

The great thing about the allover stencils, like this one, are that Cutting Edge has a little extra bit of the pattern on the side,

so that when you shift your stencil over to do the next side, it lines up perfectly, and is ready to go. So great, right?!

The moment of truth...

Perfect!!

When the paint was dry, I took my fabric to my sewing machine, and a half hour later I had a pillow cover! Tiffany was telling the truth, (not that we doubted her), but even a beginner can make a pillow cover!! This was my first ever pillow attempt and it turned out exactly how I wanted it!! Now how often can you say that about something that is your first attempt?

I just love the design, very Pottery Barn-ish. And as always with Cutting Edge's stencils, those lines are clean clean clean. This was especially important to me since this design would be seen up close, as opposed to some of the others I've done that are on the wall and are seen from a bit of a distance. Doing the stencil on a flat surface was just perfect, there was no pocketing or gaps, and it was as easy as pie. So I made another.

I didn't stencil the back of the pillows because I liked the similar but contrasting look. (You know, same fabric color and texture for both, but pattern on one and not on the other.)

I decided to add velcro to the back of my second pillow just to see how much of a difference it made. I did two 3 inch strips so my pillow still had that great over-stuffed look, but also had some durability since these will be used daily and aren't just decorative. It made such a difference that I went back and sewed velcro on the first pillow as well.

So what do you think? Fun, right?

I'll be linking this around to some great parties, including the DIY Club. Hope to see you there!