Keep Cheaping On

Make Your Own Decor Pillows

I am so surprised how these pillows turned out.  They look like faded denim.  This would be a perfect method if you were trying to achieve the “old coffee bag” effect using a vintage printable.

Again in my attempt to whip up some cheap inexpensive Christmas ornament, I found a recipe to make your own fabric paint.  Incredibly enough, I had ALL the ingredients already on hand, which almost never happens.

Keep reading for tutorial on this project.

Now you may ask, why buy Liquidex Medium when it’s just as much to purchase fabric paint?  I have Liquidex on hand for Art Journaling, but now I can make ANY COLOUR fabric paint.  I don’t have to purchase individual colours.  That’s a bonus.

Here’s what you need for these adorable pillows:

• Painters drop cloth (from your local hardware store) – sewn into an envelope pillow case cover
• Liquidex Medium (or any Acrylic Medium) - I used transparent, it doesn’t change the colour
• Craft paint – colour of your choice
• Pencil
• Paintbrush
• Printer & regular printer paper

1. Sew pillow case covers from pre-washed painter’s drop cloth (hardware store purchase – paint aisle)
2. Print the image on regular printer paper
3. To increase the size of the image beyond the 8.5 x 11 paper, in Word I “cropped” the deer image into two: deer top half and deer bottom half, than overlapped them once printed.  The J-snowflake-Y were each printed on their own pages.*Subsequently you can use the "tile" function on one whole image so it is printed largely over several 8.5x11 sheets of paper
4. Cut out the image and then lay flat on your fabric
5. Outline or trace the image onto the pillow case cover in pencil
6. Mix Liquidex Medium and craft paint.  I used half and half (red did look pink when adding medium, but dried accurately)
7. Let dry

*To remove the pencil markings, I washed my pillow case covers after they dried.  This MAY be how I got the lightened denim effect. 

I wonder if I IRONED the paint after it dried to heat set it before washing, if it would fade less.

I’m going to try this on test piece just to see what happens.

Envelope pillow case cover tutorial found here @ Instructables.com:

DIY fabric paint tutorial here @ Instructables.com:

Deer silhouette found here @ 11 Magnolia Lane.com: