Last year over at Raspberry Creative (my stationery company), I featured a fun, DIY heart pillow project I did to add some festive fun to my home for Valentine’s Day. I’ve never really been in to Valentine’s Day, but I thought a quick and easy DIY project would be fun. It didn’t go over too well in the shop, but I thought it might be fun to share here.
This post was updated July 16, 2020
My mom and I made blank pillow covers a few years ago out of this natural fabric for a project in the shop. When I stopped selling the pillow covers, I was left with several that I had no use for. I used those leftover pillow covers for this project but any plain pillow cover will work. If you sew, these would be super cute made out of drop cloth fabric!
Step 1: The Pillow Cover
I started by ironing my pillow covers so I would have a nice, flat surface to work on.
Step 2: The Computer
I went to my computer and created a heart shape that I could print out. You can hand-draw one or use clip art to get the shape you want. I then printed out my heart shape on a piece of cardstock.
Once I had my heart shape printed out, I cut out the shape. The goal is to end up with a stencil so be sure not to cut all the way through your outer shape.
Step 3: Position and Paint
Once I had my stencil cut, I placed it on my pillow over where I wanted it to go and taped it down just to keep it from moving and then I was ready to paint.
I used a spray fabric dye because that is what I had. We made colorful totes to sell in the shop and I liked how they blended so that is what I used here. Any fabric paint will work fine.
This fabric dye sprays on, so I simply held the bottle straight above the stencil and sprayed to my preferred coverage.
What I love about this dye is how the colors blend. I really like the ombre look.
You will notice above that I also added some scraps around the edge of my stencil so I didn’t get any overspray on the pillow. Depending on the fabric paint you choose, you may not need to do this.
Once I was finished, I removed the stencil and let the pillow covers dry flat over night. Once they were fully dry, I put them in the dryer for a few minutes to set the dye per the instructions on the bottles.
The entire project took less than 30 minutes and was pretty simple. We also used the same technique to add fun graphics to cotton totes.
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