Ready for a little Valentine’s fun? Me too!!

I have been super fortunate with a new friend that has moved close to me, Aimee from byAimee.com and Fancy Little Things! We have been crafting up a storm together. It’s been so fun to have someone close that loves to make things, and blog, and eat yummy food. :)

We got together last week and made some fun pillowcases for Valentine’s Day!

Here are mine!

 

These are a knockoff (kind of) of these cute pillowcases from Lush Designs.

Mine have some fun, shabby ruffles on the ends – just to dress them up a bit.

Ready for a quick tutorial?

You’ll need:

Freezer Paper
Silhouette (or exacto knife)
Paint
Fabric Medium (to add to the paint to make it washable)
2 Pillowcases
Ruffles for fabric – about 24″ x 45″ of one color and 12″ x 45″ of another color

We started out by choosing some decorative fonts, a different one for each letter. (If you’d like the Silhouette files, throw me an email and I’ll send them to you)
We enlarged each letter to fill the page and cut them out of freezer paper with the Silhouette. If you have the Cameo you’ll be able to make them even wider, closer to the original pillowcases.

The letter is reversed because I found the Silhouette cuts out the freezer paper better with the shiny side up.

(Please excuse my fuzzy little mat – I use the protective plastic but this thing attracts dust and stuff like crazy.)

Iron the freezer paper letters onto the pillowcase – 2 on each case. Make sure that you face them the right way.

Cover the open section of the stencils with paint mixed with fabric medium.
It works best to brush the paint from the outside of the stencil, in – so you are cutting down on the amount of paint that could get pushed under the stencil.

Once the paint is completely dry, remove the stencil.

It’s pretty fun to pull off that freezer paper and see cute painted letters underneath. :)

I had a few little places that the paint had seeped under the freezer paper. The white pillowcases came in handy here – I just painted over them with white fabric paint. You have to look pretty close to see them.

Once all the letters were painted on, I added some ruffles to the hem of each pillow case. I wanted these to be a little shabby and frayed looking – so I left them unhemmed.
I cut the fabric into strips that were 3″ x 45″. I cut 4 strips of the cream for each case and 2 strips of white.

Normally I would sew 2 of each of the strips together – to make 3 long ruffles. This time I wanted a little more of a frayed edge showing, so I ruffled each piece separately, then overlapped them in each row on the pillowcase.

I hope that makes sense.

Starting with two of the cream ruffles, pin them to the top edge of the pillowcase. Overlap the ruffles just a bit where they meet on the pillowcase.

Sew the top row on.

Repeat for the other two ruffles, overlapping them at different points on the pillowcase. Mine are about 1 1/2″ apart down the hem.

Repeat for the other pillowcase – and you’re all done! Now you have a sweet, stylish way to dress up your room for Valentine’s Day!
Or anytime really – how cute would these make as a wedding or shower gift??

Aimee hasn’t posted hers yet but I’ll let you know when she does. She used a gorgeous gray color for the letters – it is so pretty!

What do you think?

I almost asked you if you LOVE them. But I refrained.

I’m linking to Sunday Scoop, Today’s Creative Blog, Met Monday, Skip to my Lou, Tutorials & Tips Tuesday, Funky Junk Interiors, and the other fabulous parties on the sidebar – make sure you check them out!

UPDATE – Several of you have asked for the fonts I used on the letters so I thought I’d add it here too. They are:
L – Cast Iron
O – Ornatique
V – Tropicana
E – Circus

Thanks!