Burlap Wall Art

Here is another inexpensive way to make some DIY decor for around the house.

All you'll need is some burlap, fabric paint, shapes to paint around, masking tape, acrylic paint, and foam board. (I got my foam board at the dollar store for $1.)

First, you'll lay out your shapes on the burlap. You'll also want to tape around the shapes (my shapes are post-it notes) to create a border.

Take the fabric paint and foam brush and apply the paint around the shapes. You'll want to dab with the brush, not stroke, to avoid getting paint under the shapes.

Carefully remove the masking tape and shapes. Let the burlap dry.

I didn't take any pictures of the next steps, but I painted the edges of the foam board after they were cut to the proper sizes. Then I used hot glue to attach the burlap to the foam board after it was dry.

I had the burlap and paint left over from other projects. I also had everything else around the house (I free handed the leaf stencils and also the middle flower stencil) so the only thing I bought was the foam board, making this a very frugal craft for me!

Pillow Shams with Fabric Paint Tutorial

I made these lilac pillow shams to go with our bedspread (which is in storage)...and embellished them with inverse stenciling.
The bird motifs match the bird theme wall art I shared here.

To fill them up, I had to use two standard pillows!
I think my pillows may just be a little flat, but maybe I made the shams too generous in size.
Oh well, that way they won't look lost on our king-sized bed.

The shams tie on the inside:

If you want to make some large pillow shams, you'll need (for each sham):

three 3"x17" strips for the ties

one 36" x 44" piece for the sham itself.

I prepared the ties first. To do this, I sewed each 3" strip into a 17" long tube. Then I cut it in half, sewed up one end, and turned them. Then I pressed each one flat.

For the sham, I folded the large piece in half so it was 36" x 22" and sewed around like a pillow case. I used fabric that was 36" wide, so it had a finished edge on two sides. On the bottom side, I zig-zagged to avoid any fraying.

For the top edge, I folded down the hem three times. I wanted the finished length to be about 30" but didn't want a very deep lip on the sham itself.

Before sewing the top hem, I pinned the ties into place. I used three sets per pillow.

I sewed around the edge and attached the ties in one step.

Now comes the fun part. Painting!
On the right side of the fabric, I placed the silhouettes I wanted to paint around. I used painter's tape to mark off a small area around the silhouettes. I taped the shapes down from the bottom using the painter's tape, too.

Place some paper or cardboard between the layers of the pillowcase to prevent the paint from bleeding through to the back!

To do the painting, I used a foam brush and fabric paint (same stuff I used in this tutorial).
You can't use brush strokes for this, you have to dab the paint around the shapes to avoid getting paint underneath the shapes.

It probably would've been better to wait for the paint to dry before removing the tape and shapes! But I couldn't wait...

I'm pretty happy with how the shams turned out.

If only our house was done and we had our bed and bedspread out of storage--I want to see how they look!

Guest Posting Today!

My post is up on Courtier Mommy! Go check it out!

Car-Theme Birthday Party

I wanted to share the simple decorations I made for my son's second birthday party. I made all of them myself this past week from materials I had around the house.

(I did buy a few things, but didn't spend more than a few dollars).

I used a car silhouette I enhanced with some windows in varied sizes for all the car shapes.

Here's the big picture:

Here's a little tour of the individual things I made.

I made two banners:

This banner was made from felt scraps and ribbon scraps. I cut out all the cars and just hot glued the windows onto them and then hot glued them to the ribbons.

These cars were made from scrapbook paper. I punched two holes in each car and strung them onto ribbon. (Fun fact: the ribbon was left over from my baby shower 2+ years ago! My aunt gave me the extra for my craft stash!)

These were little favors I made with his 2-year picture. I just took clothes pins and used a glue stick to attach strips of scrapbook paper to the fronts, then cut out more paper cars and hot glued them to the front! Then I put magnets on the back.

They stand up.

This is the centerpiece for the table. I used BBQ skewers to suspend the cars, which are double-sided and hot glued to the skewers. Then I poked the skewers into Styrofoam and covered the Styrofoam with blue shredded paper.

This is the side table's focal point/centerpiece. I just used a cheapo sand pail to set Styrofoam in and used more BBQ skewers to suspend more cars.

The only materials I bought were the BBQ skewers and the blue shredded paper. Everything else I found lying around. I'm not usually a big decorator for any holiday or event, but I got on a roll for this birthday! It was a lot of fun; I think sticking with two main colors and the same basic shape helped pull everything together.

My husband and my son's birthdays are two days apart (separated by a 28-year span!) and this year was just small party for both of them. The only thing that wasn't small were the desserts...I made a lemonade layer cake and a strawberry rhubarb pie!

It was a busy week and I didn't do a stitch of sewing.

Piano Bench Reupholustery

My dad has a beautiful grand piano. I reupholstered the piano bench this week.

This is the before picture. He teaches a lot of piano lessons and some of the kids just destroyed the poor bench. It was an ugly fabric anyway, so it was time for an update!

First I had to strip off the ugly green fabric. Whatever was at the edges had turned to dust and I was allergic to it! The middle part had some rubber padding glued to it that was kind of disgusting to rip off. I scraped the glue off.

I put the red braid all around the edge and secured it with tacks.

I cut pieces of ply grip (see video on how to use the ply grip here) to fit the edges of the bench and tacked them the whole way around. It was a lot of tacking!

Next, I cut a piece of foam for the top of the bench. I used double stick carpet tape to keep the foam in place.

For the last and most tedious step, I cut a piece of fabric to fit the bench. It was tough to get the pattern straight the whole way around and also keep tension on the fabric so it was pulled tightly enough.

I tucked the edge of the fabric in and then hammered the ply grip into place to secure it on all four edges.