I have a throw pillow obsession. Recently, I have been drawn to pillows with bold geometric patterns and also ones with simple letters/words (opposites attract?). Nice throw pillows can be very expensive and as I have said before… I refuse to buy things I know I can make. Plus, when you make something, you are proud to display it in your home. Well… upon making loads of throw pillows recently, I came across a great tutorial for a stenciled pillow and tweaked it a bit to work for me.

What you need:

-Pillow cover. You can make this, use one you have or buy one. I got a really beautiful linen one here because I was looking for that neutral home-made shabby-chic look (I probably just made that “look” up)

-Letter stencil. I used Martha Stewarts adhesive stencils from Michaels. I will get into how much I love these in a bit.

-Fabric marker. I used a black sharpie paint marker and it worked perfectly.

-Cardboard

Here is what I did:

When I received my pillow cover in the mail, I just quickly ironed it and then got to work. I put a piece of cardboard inside the pillow cover so that the paint wouldn’t bleed through. It worked like a charm!

The stencils I used were perfect for a project like this. The adhesive letter stencils from Martha Stewart come in lower and upper case… which was great because I wanted only lower case letters for my pillow.

I decided to go with “You are my Sunshine”.  I started by placing the adhesive stencils on the pillow cover in the pattern I was looking for. You can move the letters around until you get the spacing just right. Then, I just used the fabric markers and painted in the stencils. It was like coloring in a coloring book! After each letter I painted, I removed the stencil right away to prevent the paint from drying onto the stencil and ruining the overall look. If you don’t have fabric markers, regular craft paint and a sponge-tip brush would work just fine with these stencils and this project as well.

The great thing about these stencils is that you can wash the paint right off them and they stay adhesive on the back for future projects. How great is that?!?

Overall it worked out really well for me and I am so happy with my pillow cover. This would be a great wedding/anniversary gift I think. Or even a great gift for a friend (maybe with the birthdays of their kids). The possibilities are endless! Let me know if you try something like this!

{original tutorial from wit & whistle}