So soft and sweaters

I don't know about you but this girl cannot pass up anything fluffy and soft.  When I was at Hancock Fabrics, I stumbled upon a super soft winter white faux fur.  $20 later, I walked out with 2 yards of fabric and an itch to get to work.

After pulling out my sofa throw pillows, I decided that they were too lumpy (probably from all of the pillow wars:).  Back out armed with coupons, I come back with two new plush pillow inserts from Joann's.  I am all about doing things nice and easy.  So, I whip up two envelope pillow covers.  I notice I have a lot of fabric left.  You know the saying, waste not, want not.  Now, I am on the hunt for random pillows floating around my house to fluffify (yeah, I know that is not a word).

2 yards of fabric, $20, and 5 pillows later, I have 5 pillows to cuddle up with on these cold winter days.

I have the softness.  Now, I need a pop of color.  Something that says Christmas and winter.  To Salvation Army I went, to find sweaters for more pillows!  I found a red and green sweater that are perfect for the splash of holiday I need to go with my oh so soft pillows.

Since I closed the green pillow with hook and loop, it stretch the sweater pillowcase out on that closure side.  My solution was to weave red ribbon through that end of the pillow to look like a present.  I love, love, love how they turned out!

Sharing at:
Frugal Friday
Show and Tell Friday
Remodelaholic

Ballard Holiday pillows

It is that time of year to give my children's teachers a little something at Christmas time.  Each year, I try to make something.  For the past 2 years, I have written poems for my son's teachers.  This year, I seem to be out of creative juices in that area. 

I spied these cute holiday pillows at Ballard Designs.

I thought these would be too cute not to try to make.  I dragged out my left over drop cloth fabric, my wonder under transfer webbing, a fabric marker, 2 Christmas bandannas from Hobby Lobby that were 50% off, and my trusty sewing machine and got to work.  I can't say that I particularly enjoyed sewing down the appliques.  Any hints on how to keep it consistent around circles would be appreciated. 

Two down, only five more to go!  I sure hope the teachers enjoy there gifts.

I'm sharing this over at:
Between Naps on the Porch
Todays Creatvie Blog
may edit to add links to parties
 

Pillow mania continued...

I've caught the sewing bug and can't seem to shake it.  I had learned about transferring images onto fabric with CitraSolv over at The Graphics Fairy post here a while ago.  I had already tried it with place mats and it seemed to work out okay.

I decided to try it out on my drop cloth fabric as well as muslin for some frenchy inspirational type pillows.  The process is very simple.  The materials needed are a mirror image laser copy of your image, some sort of strong tape, cotton ball, CitraSolv, a spoon, and a little elbow grease. 

I did have a tough time finding CitraSolv.  I found it at an natural herbal type store. 

First print out your image from your computer.  Next, go and make a mirror image copy using a laser copying machine.  This is important because something from the laser toner cartridge reacts with the CitraSolv.  Then, tape your image face down on your fabric. 

Take your cotton ball with the CitraSolv on it and coat the image.  Be careful not to over soak or the paper will tear. 

Next, burnish with a spoon.  Here are the two different fabrics side by side.

As you can see, the drop cloth didn't turn out quite as good.  I had to go back and trace the words with my fabric pen.  Here is the finished product.

I found from comparing my past place mat project with this that perhaps using the color copier verses the black and white copier made a difference.  Maybe next time, I'll just use the color copier.  I had better results with the image transfer with color.  

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Pillow Mania

Lately, I have been in the sewing mood.  Therefore, I have went a little crazy with making pillows.  Here are three that I just recently completed.  (Don't worry, I know the pink pillow doesn't match.  It is for my daughter's room.)   

I have yet again been inspired by all of you that have in turn been inspired by Pottery Barn.  I am still going to ride the faux grain sack train for a while still.  I decided to take this Pottery Barn pillow and try my hand at it.

Image from Pottery Barn

I have been playing around the different techniques for decorating them.  The first is by far the easiest.  All I did for this pillow was put some painter's tape down and dry brush on some acrylic navy paint.  Like so:

Then just sew it together.  I don't think it turned out to different from the PB pillow.  What do you think??

This next pillow I just printed out my word in the font I liked, held it up to the window and used a fabric marker to trace the letters.  Make sure you are doing this on a sunny day and that you are prepared to have your arms "feel the burn."

 
This last pillow, I actually made a silk screen for it.  So, it was the most complex but there was no way I would have been able to catch all of this detail without the silk screen.  I love the way the font turned out.  Plus, with the screen I quickly made two more for my nieces.

Here is a close up of the font.  Sorry, but the lighting isn't great so the colors are not as they really are in the above photo.

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May edit to add links to parties.