Create Your Own Designer Pillow for $20
By Alexis Jonnson for TheNest.com
Shauna West, the DIY master behind The $50 Home Makeover book, is showing us how to stencil the modern way. Simple linen pillow covers get a super-easy personal styling (courtesy of you!), but you can use these skills to transform everything from curtains to tea towels — or even walls.
Cost: $20 | Time: 30 minutes
What You’ll Need:
White canvas pillow cover (can be found at IKEA)
Martha Stewart Crafts Fabric Medium
Acrylic or latex paint
Measuring spoons
Stir stick
Stencil (the one pictured can be found at RoyalDesignStudio.com
FrogTape or artist tape
Small stencil brush
Folded paper towels
Small outlining brush (optional)
Step 1: Wash and dry your pillow cover to remove any sizing (manufacturer’s fabric treatment). Iron it if you’d like, or throw it in the dryer long enough that it loses some wrinkles.
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Step 2: Measure 1 teaspoon fabric medium to 1 teaspoon paint, and mix together with a small stir stick. The paint will be thin, but not runny.
Step 3: Place your stencil on the pillow cover, and tape along the top and bottom edges to hold it in place.
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Step 4: Barely dip your brush in the paint, but evenly cover the brush’s entire round flat surface. Then, using a circular motion, offload extra paint onto a folded paper towel.
Step 5: Starting on the plastic part of the stencil, swirl your stencil brush onto the cut-out areas, painting in a circular motion, not in an up-and-down stippling motion. You can fill in that way, but painting in a circular motion helps avoid too much paint seeping under the stencil.
Step 6: After you’ve filled in the design, remove the stencil. Peel from the corner, and lift a little at a time to make sure extra paint hasn’t seeped underneath.
Step 7: If you feel like your bird needs a little something extra, use a small outlining brush and freehand paint small dashes to look like a wind trail. Simple, but a fun touch. Plus, mixing hand painted lines with the stenciled image embraces an imperfect look, and helps you successfully pull off painted accents like these semi-handmade pillows.
Handy How-To: Most of the time, painting two thinner coats is much better when painting fabric. But fabric medium really thins the paint and makes it more easily absorbed, so it can help you get great coverage in one coat.
Excerpted from The $50 Home Makeover: 75 Easy Projects to Transform Your Current Space into Your Dream Place–for $50 or Less! Copyright © 2014 by Shaunna West and published by F+W Media, Inc. Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Photos courtesy of Shaunna West.
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