Larcie Bird: Front Porch Pillows

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Front Porch Pillows

I live in Daybreak. It's a planned community with the idea of older style homes and front porches. We have a lot of fun colorful houses in our neighborhood. I have mixed feelings about my front porch. I would prefer to have it open so that I can sit out on my bench and watch my kids play in the street. However, I do love that it hides the scooters that are always parked on the front porch. Anyway, I put my cute yellow bench out on the front porch and I wanted to decorate it with some pillows. I have been wanting to make something with burlap... since it's so trendy right now. So, I thought I'd do something with pillows!

I started with this pillow. I bought outdoor fabric at Joann. I followed my own tutorial to make it a slip covered pillow. Then I just cut a strip of burlap and sewed a reinforced stitch around the edge so it wouldn't fray. I sewed it into a band and made another smaller band to cinch it up in the front. Then I attached a fabric (burlap) flower that I made using my tutorial here.

Then came the fun part. I really liked the pattern in the fabric. And I wanted to make a smaller coordinating pillow out of burlap. So, here is what I did.

I enlarged the pattern on my copy machine. I think it was about 8x8.

I traced the pattern onto freezer paper.

I used an exacto knife and small scissors to cut out the pattern. ( I got lazy and just cut out the part that repeated.

If you would like a more detailed tutorial on freezer paper stencils, you can find one here.

I ironed the freezer paper stencil onto the burlap and used a sponge brush to dab acrylic paint onto the burlap. (this is where the lazy part came in. I had to take the freezer paper off and turn it 4 times to get the repeating pattern. That seemed easier than cutting it out.)

I heat set the paint on with the iron.

I sewed the pillow using the same slip covered pillow tutorial.

Here's the funny part... I was worried about a pillow form getting wet on the porch and getting moldy, so I made my pillow form by stuffing a ziploc bag with polyfil!!!