Hand Painted Pillow Cases - You CAN Make Your Own! | Life Love and Hiccups: Hand Painted Pillow Cases - You CAN Make Your Own!
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Friday 23 August 2013

Hand Painted Pillow Cases - You CAN Make Your Own!

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I've been letting my inner Martha Mudguts go crazy this past week.

If she has wanted to craft it, I've been all "Hell Yeah, let's go for it" and she has been all "Wooohoo, let's go nuts!".

Yes I am talking about myself in the third person and I have no idea why. Perhaps the paint fumes have gone to my head.

So anyways, what say we knock this out before I totally lose the plot.

I've been making my own hand painted pillowcases and can I tell you - this is sooooo much fun. If you are really game this would be something you could totally do with the kids too. I'm gonna have to pull up my big girl panties and suck it up, because my kids have spied these and I have promised they can have a go over the weekend.

What can I say .... they got me in a moment of weakness.

I haven't tried this before because I always thought it would be hard and fiddly, but I stand corrected. It couldn't be easier.

You can turn pretty much an acrylic paint into fabric paint by mixing it with some textile medium (mix 2 parts paint with 1 part textile medium).

I used Jo Sonja's textile medium which I got from Spotlight and just some old tubes of acrylic paint I had in the craft cupboard.

Gather your supplies together. You will need acrylic paint in the colour of your choice, a textile medium, some different size brushes depending on your design and a bowl to mix your paint in.

When it comes to choosing your pillowcases, it is better to go with a higher thread count (min 250) as you will get a better result and less bleeding of colour.

Draw up your design either by hand or on your computer and print it out to the size you want.

Slip it into your pillowcase in the position you want it and trace with a 2B pencil.



Before you start painting, place a protective mat inside your pillowcase to stop the paint soaking through to the other side.

Now pretty much just start painting.

Don't worry about making it too perfect as the more relaxed your hand is as you paint, the better the end result you will achieve.

Once your pillowcases are dry, you will need to iron them with a hot iron to set the paint and make it washable. Don't try and iron straight onto your painted design - cover it with a tea towel to protect it.

Give your pillowcases a wash on a cold wash and basically that is it. 

You can make these for yourself, but they also make a really cute and cheap gift for someone special. 

Obviously the hearts are for the hubby and I and the Bonsoir pillowcase is for one of my boys. I'm working on a few other designs for my other son's and I'll share those with you on instagram once they are finished.


So what do you think? Are you keen to give this one a go?