Ah, the trials and tribulations of one little diy project.
All I wanted was a simple little pillow for the chair in my youngest daughter's room. A project, that should have taken an hour and a half at the most, turned into a half a day and all night project! Does this ever happen to you???? Or is it just me?
Ever since I found the cool gray chair at HomeGoods several months ago, I knew it needed a pillow.
Awhile back on the big Blog Party blog hop, I saw a great table makeover over at Junkin' Junky that had a Paris Market stencil. Oooh, la la, it was the perfect design for a pillow. I inquired about the design and Mel was so nice she emailed the design file to me. I was able to re-format it so I could cut the stencil with my Silhouette Machine
The stencil is pretty intricate, but the Silhouette cut it perfectly.
I used a pre-washed drop cloth for the fabric for the pillow. Then I started applying the paint on the fabric using the stencil.
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No photo with for this one....let's just say I need to do a bit more reading up on how to paint fabric : /
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When diy projects go awry, you have to get creative. I have heard about bloggers putting fabric in their printers and printing straight onto the fabric. Thought it was a good idea. Problem is ... my design on Silhouette was an outline and I had to fill it in. No problem, I could do that on the Silhouette software, only having not used it for very long, I ran into some problems and only a few of the letters and design would fill in black. If you know what I'm doing wrong, let me know!
By the time I got to this point I was really frustrated and not in a good mood!
So, after wasting a bunch of time trying to fill in my design, I went back to the original design file, which was red and decided to print it in the black ink only.
Since the fabric that you put in the printer has to be 8 1/2" wide, I cut out another piece of drop cloth fabric and then spray glued it to a piece of cardstock... this got stuck in my printer.
So, I cut out another one and tried it again... only this time I spray glued the fabric onto regular printer paper.
Since I have 2 printers (don't ask) and it got stuck in the first one, I tried my other printer. (Update:my printers are inkjet not laser)
Here's what came out when I printed it in grayscale...
Not sure what happened there.
So, I tried again in the first printer and got some uneven inking... I think the fabric got held up in the printer because it was too thick and wrinkly.
Let's try this AGAIN! I ironed the fabric really good and sent it through again, only I forgot to check "print with black ink"!!!! OY!!!
It took me 5 tries, but it finally came out right!
The secret is to iron the fabric before putting it on the paper and making the fabric 1/8" shorter than the paper so that when it goes into the printer, the printer grabs the paper instead of the fabric.
PHEW!!!
Sewing the pillow took all but 5 minutes! I used batting instead of a pillow form to stuff it because it's a custom size.
Glad it's finished...I hope the next time I make one it doesn't take me 6 hours!
Seriously! Ever have simple diy projects take forever to finish???
Pam
spray glued it to a piece of cardstock
