pillows for klarisa

I have a friend who is my pinterest soul-mate. That sounds pretty intense, but basically, everything Klarisa pins I want to pin... and do and make. That is not meant to be creepy and I could have just said "Klarisa has good taste", but I hardly feel like that covers the depth of my appreciation for her hunting out the good stuff or the speed with which I click repin. Haha!

To show my appreciation, I made 3 pillows for Klarisa that we had both pinned close to the beginning of our pinning days. 

The first (and my favorite) is this cute little bird pillow found via pinterest, but origionally from this cool etsy shop. This is my version:

Next is this pretty ruffle flower pillow.

(I do not have a direct link for this pillow. I read & combined several tuturials found via pinterest - my DIY instructions are below)

Finally, I made a kite pillow in the same style as the bird pillow and inspired from the same etsy shop

I love how cute they all are!

Here's my steps for making the purple flower pillow - it's so easy and fun I feel guilty for not making letting Klarisa do it herself!

I cut several 2" strips of stretchy soft fabric (like jersey material, but I used the less expensive version)

I believe I ended us using 5 strips, but how much you need/use depends on the size of your pillow.

Then I sewed down the middle of the strips of fabric on my largest stitch setting to create a "ruffled" strip.

At frist I sewed my strips together, but then I found it was easier to work with them if I had somewhat shorter pieces and it did not change the end results/look - so I would skip that step next time.

Next I used a large kitchen bowl as a circle pattern.

And cut a circle out of felt for my flower base.

It's time for flower asembly!

Fold the ruffled strips in half, so that the stitching is at the base.

and start hot gluing. Apply the glue to the felt circle and then press the strips of folded fabric (at the base where the stitching is) to the felt.

I started at the center of my circle, but saw tutorials that started from the outside instead.

I'll have to try that next, and give an update if I find one way is easier than the other.

Sorry I didn't take good pictures during the glue stage, but I had to keep moving!

Here I am holding back the previous layer of ruffles so I can glue the next layer a little closer for a fuller look.

To finish the pillow, I just trimmed the felt as close as possible and glued it to a pillow front. I used hot glue for this step and immediately put a heavy book on the glued flower to help is set flat.

Isn't is just so pretty and ruffly?!?!

And here is another bird pillow shot just b/d it's still my favorite!

shared at whipperberry.com

you are my sunshine, my lovely sunshine

You are my sunshine, my lovely sunshine...

I instantly fell in love with this pillow I found via pinterest

it's origionally from here, but it was a wee bit of a luxery item at $159!

Then I saw this great tutorial, also via pinterest, for the same style pillow.

I've never loved using stencils because I have a hard time getting everything lined up and looking as neat and straight as I want it to, but I kept thinking about this pillow and then a lightbulb went off!!! I used scrapbooking letter stickers instead of a stencil, it was easy and I love how it turned out!

Here's the breakdown of how I did it:

I cut an 18" square of fabric (for a 18" pillow form) and taped it to a 17" square piece of cardboard.

Here's the front

and here's what the back looked like at that point.

Next, I marked off even sections with a water soluble pencil (so I'd be sure to have straight lines across the pillow). I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, but I don't think this step was necessary and would skip it next time because of how well the ruler worked in the next step.

I used a ruler and placed my letter stickers how I wanted them to look (there are lots of different styles of letter stickers in the scrapbooking isle and they are only about $1.50 a package when Hobby Lobby does their half price sale).

The stickers provided a great visual and I was able to move them around a little until I had everything to my liking before I made any permanent marks on my fabric.

I then used a fine point fabric marker to outline the letters,

once all the outlining was done I removed the stickers,

and filled in the letters with a larger tip fabric marker

I heat set the pillow front by ironing it, attached a pillow back with a zipper enclosure and washed out the water soluble pencil lines.

Now I have a great pillow to prettify my deck!!!

You are my sunshine

my lovely sunshine

you make me happy

when skys are grey

you will know dear

how much I love you

Just another installment in my pinterest

project resolution challenge!

(see here)

shared at http://www.younghouselove.com/

and at http://www.whipperberry.com/

fun pillow randoms

A week or two ago I shared about this pom pillow I made. I said that I loved it and I still do... it turns out Callie really loves it too!!! She never used to sleep in the chair this pillow now calls home, but you can find her there all the time now! It's sooo cute!!!

I also shared last week about the pillows I made for my rocking chair redo (see here) and then I found a pillow on onekingslane made of the same material for $79!!! My pillow cost a total of $16 - $10 for the material and $6 for the foam insert (which I used a super clearanced Pier1 cusshion for). Go me!

update: I just found this chair redo with the same fabric!

rocking chair redo complete !!!

Back in the very beginning of summer I posted about this rocking chair I had snagged at a garage sale for $5, for the purpose of attempting to participate in the furniture refinishing craze. My friend Annie, from Living Life with the Klinkners was my partner in crime the whole way through this redo.

I am in love with how our first ever furniture redo turned out!!! It's not perfect, but I learned something every step of the way and am excited to keep an eye out for more pieces of furniture that could use some TLC.

Annie is going to share our first couple of steps, the sanding and priming, here... so no scrolling down until you check it out.

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Once we were all sanded and primed it was time to break out the color. We decided we wanted a "statement" color. Annie and I both tend to select "safe" colors so we wanted to use this opportunity to really step out and play with something bold!

We made sure we were good and set up (with our paint brushes and wine glasses and Dexter-like garage setting) before we popped open the paint can.

The color we finally selected was "swizzle stick" by Valspar's Allen Roth collection and I think it was a perfect choice!!! (It's definately prettier in person than it's showing up in my pictures)

Here's our first coat. We painted with brushes instead of a sprayer due to the cost factor. The paint went on very easily though, so I don't think we really missed having a sprayer at all!

Here's after the second coat

We ended up applying about 4 coats of paint and then we used a clear poly coat in a spray can to finish the job. We applied the poly in light even coatings and used 3 cans to do 3 coats on the rocker.

After all that we had this beautiful glistening rocker!!!

I just love how the paint brings out the special details on the rocker

With everything turning out so well, I just knew I had to add pillows, which I wanted to make by following tutorials I'd been seeing on some of the blogs I read.

Here's our rocker decked out with the fancy pillow swag I made!

Pillow detail shot

For the seat cushion I was able to get a super clearanced cushion at Pier1 which I used as a pattern and then the interior of my rocker seat cusion. I just added ruffles b/c I love them!

Here's a shot of ties in the back

I followed this tutorial for my flower pillow and just made it smaller by using a 14" pillow form.

And I followed this tutorial for my herringbone pillow

(mine's a little rough though, I'm gonna have to give this one another try in the near future)

So what do you think??? Do you love how it turned out as much as I do???

Are you at least going to give these awesome pillow tutorials a try???

This is being linked to:

missmustardseed.blogspot.com

and