Mr. and Mrs. Pillows -Part 1

I think I'm in love with burlap, its such a wonderful fabric, not to mention very inexpensive. I want to go to Joanns and just buy the whole bolt as I just have so many things I want to use it for! My first burlap project is to make Mr. & Mrs. pillows. Similar to these over priced pair from Ballard Designs (no disrespect to BD, I still love you, however 59.00 each? that's almost 150.00 for both with tax and shipping...you crazy).

So I made my own.

I though at first I wanted to make them 20 inch pillows. So i cut the fabric for 20 inches, well that just seemed silly big, as they would take up a large part of your sofa, So I just re cut and went with 18 inch pillows just like they were at Ballard.

Once cut, I needed a template or stencil. I looked around the Internet for MR. and MRS. stencils and they were about $15 a piece so not too expensive but still more than I wanted to pay. So I made my own.   I went to into Word, typed out MR in Times New Roman then blew it up to 500.  It took two pieces of paper but they over lapped fine as I used the Narrow margins setting.


So once I confirmed the size and font, I centered the letters and placed they under the first layer of burlap as a template.

I used black matte fabric paint and a stiff 1/4 in paint brush and went to work.  It took about two good coats to really cover the burlap and get into the fabric.

Once completed I removed the fabric from the template to dry as if it's left in place the fabric would stick to the paper.  If this is a project you plan on doing more than once you could always laminate the template or put them in plastic page protectors.

Last step is to hang to dry, an the fabric is going to be just about as wet on the back as it is on the front, I used paint hangers and hung then on the cabinet doors in the laundry room.

Check back later in the week as I finish the MRS pillow and sew them together!