diy projects

I remember a post Kate (Centsational Girl) wrote a few months ago. It was lovely, she made her own pillow cover out of a flour sack, and then taped it up and painted a fun pattern on it! I thought it was wonderful. SHE is wonderful.  But, I didn’t even pin it because I know myself and I will never drag out my sewing machine. But, I had already ordered a herringbone stencil from Royal Design Studio for another project so my wheels started to turn.  I could easily hack her beautiful DIY.

Am I the only one who just envisioned Kate as Sleeping Beauty and me as the evil witch with the scary long nails, unfortunate hooded black cape and apple?  A ha ha ha ha, I’m going to HACK your beautiful DIY!

diy projects

diy projects

I gathered up my stencil, brush, acrylic paint, fabric medium (it’s like fabric softener that you mix with paint) and a big piece of cardboard. And, instead of making my own pillow, I just grabbed one of  my $5 pillow covers from Hobby Lobby. Evil witch for the WIN!

decorative throw pillow cover

diy projects

diy projects

diy pillow cover

I started out by putting cardboard inside the pillow cover so the paint wouldn’t bleed through. But it was a pain to get the cardboard the right size and in there correctly and I am forever impatient so, I pulled it out and just decided to go easy on the paint.  Besides, the back (which I think is supposed to the be front) has 3 buttons on it so I wasn’t going to use that side anyway, who cares if paint came through? (*insert additional evil laughter here)  You can see that it only came through in one tiny spot.

diy projects

Since I’m a card-carrying imperfectionist, this was exactly the look I was going for. It took about three minutes, give or take 15 seconds. I even put the cover on right after I painted it, just because I am really impatient (and yet careful).  And, even though I actually had the fabric medium (you can even see it in one of the pictures!) I forgot to use it.  Story of my life. Oh well. So it’s just acrylic paint (.60 cents) and a $5 pillow cover with a stencil I already had. It’s not nearly as finished as Kate’s. Her’s is more pretty captain of the cheerleading squad and mine is more quirky girl who wears knee socks even if they aren’t in style and is in the marching band and loves art class and needs a better hairstyle and some makeup tips.  But they are good friends and appreciate each other and fit in perfectly within their own environments.