Porch Pillows

Heavy sigh... my, my how time flies.  This time last week, I was knee deep in craft projects soaking up every last second of my last few days at home.  Now, it's onward and upward as I've gone back to work part time and spent the rest of the week running necessary errands, appointments and odds and ends before I start back to work full time.  I thought if I stuck my toes into the water before I jumped full in that things would be calm and completely under control.  While the week has been good to me, I'm just now getting around to posting some of the adorable projects I did on my crafty vaca last week!

One thing that has been on my to do list for some time now was to revamp the pillows on the front porch.  I just love my front porch and the four big rocking chairs that sit upon it.  It feels so welcoming to me and well... so southern :)!  For the better part of the last year, gold gingham pillows with little bees embroidered all over have sat in each of the chairs and welcomed guests to come and sit a spell.  Well, these cuties have surely seen better days and the hot summer sun did a number on them leaving them a drab blah color in need of a redo. 

The "Before"

And so, armed with a love for all things burlap right now and an idea of how cute monogrammed or personalized pillows would be; I set out to whip up some cute new designs that would make the porch pop this fall.  Sure, I've seen some darling burlap pillows on the pages of my favorite catalogs, but with a price tag of over $60 each I decided to pass because I'd certainly prefer to invest over $200 in something more meaningful and useful (new shoes for fall!).  This led me to my hunt for affordable pillows and a little craft project.  In the end, I now have some super cute, personalized pillows to toss around and welcome our friends!

New Burlap Beauties for the Porch

Here's how I did it:

Supply Round Up:

• Pillow covers
• Fabric or acrylic paint
• Paint brushes
• Paper (scrap)
• Scissors, tape and marker (for tracing)
• Template

Craft in a Flash:
1.  I secured plain burlap pillow covers.  I found mine on ebay for a very affordable price. 
2.  Print off a template for your monogram, letter or other personalization.  My choice was an oh, so simple giant "m" letter.  To make my template, I simply selected the font of choice and a very large font size; then printed it out.  Does it get any easier?

3.  Insert a piece of scrap paper inside the pillow cover FIRST.  This will keep paint and marker from getting through your cover onto the back of the pillow.  This is especially important if you use an open weave like burlap! 
4.  Cut out your template and decide where you want your design.  If you are doing multiple pillows that need to look the same, be sure to measure the position of the template so that you can copy the same measurements for your other pillows.  Tape the template to your pillow cover.  I used a little bit of tape on each of the straight sides of my "m" so that it would stay pretty flat.  Trace around your template and ensure that your lines are very straight (or plan to paint outside of them).  Remove your template when you are done.  Be sure to keep the template in good shape if you plan to do multiple pillows so you can reuse it!
5.  With paint, trace around your letter first.  Then, fill it in with additional paint.  You may need to do a few coats of paint to get a good cover.

6.  Once dry, insert your pillow form and voila ... super cute and super inexpensive new porch pillows!

~charmed, b

This post is partying over at A Mommy's Life