Silhouette Throw Pillows

 

My kids are sick with the snufflies and I have had the headache of all headaches all day and I think if one more little person whines at me because they can't eat Halloween candy three hundred and seventy-two times a day, my head just might explode.  But I did manage to create a pretty little throw pillow that makes me smile every time I see it.

I started by taking a profile picture of one of my daughters.

I printed the photo on plain printer paper and then traced the shape of her head with a sharpie.

The sharpie will bleed through the paper enough that when you flip it, you have just an outline.

I glued the outline to a piece of contact paper...

...And then cut it out.  Voila, a stencil!

Then I removed the backing from the contact paper and stuck it to the fabric.  I wish I'd used a different colored contact paper so that you could see this better.

I painted it with craft paint mixed with fabric medium.  Fabric medium basically turns any craft paint in to a fabric paint.  I've been using fabric medium ever since I was a teenager and wanted to paint my own offensive slogans on t-shirts.  You can find it with the craft paints in any store that sells that sort of stuff and the instructions on the label will tell you how to use it.

Once dried, I stitched together my pillow and stuffed it with the fluff from a retired bed pillow.

I also made a birdie pillow for our bedroom using very much the same process.(Although instead of trying to get a bird to stand still while I took a profile picture, I just used a bird picture from Picnik. )

Thanks for stopping by The Complete Guide to Imperfect Homemaking!