Monday, July 23, 2012

Christmas Carol Pillow

It's been a while since I've updated our family blog here and it's been even longer since I've had the time to do any craftiness.  Usually summer is the one time of the year that this school teacher has to pour creative juices into something that's not classroom related.  This summer though, I've been a bit preoccupied by the littlest Stewart Little (and loving every second!).  By the way, if you're looking for the latest Stewart Little updates and pictures, be sure to check out Dear Sweet Ella.

With that said, it was awfully nice to have a good excuse to do a little sewing and crafting last week.  Our awesome women's ministry E3 came up with the brilliant idea to have a Pinterest party with a Christmas in July theme!  I was so excited about it that I stayed up 3 hours after one of Ella's midnight feedings going through my Pinterest boards and scheming about what fun thing I would make and take.  With our budget still tight after my maternity leave, I knew I needed to come up with something I could do with supplies I already had and/or a very cheap run to JoAnn's/Hobby Lobby/Michael's.  After the first two hours of scrolling through Pinterest on my phone, I decided to tweak a version of this pillow from Wit & Whistle. (I spent the last hour dreaming about what would go on my pillow).
 I already had an 18x18 pillow form from a project I never got around to last summer so all I needed was some good fabric (Wit & Whistle used a ready made pillow case - fabric is mucho cheaper) and a couple of fabric markers.  I found some great canvas material marked down at JoAnn's and I'm very happy with the result.  It looks a bit like the linen version above, but it's thicker and I think it will be much more durable.

For sewing the pillow case I used HGTV's great tutorial and just left out the step with the fringe.  I love this tutorial because it gives such simple instructions for how much fabric to use if you want the pillow case to be removable.  See how it's open on the back?



Then came the fun part!  I didn't have a stencil, so I made a square text box in Microsoft Publisher (you can do it in any word processing program too) and played around with fonts until I found a look and a fit that I liked, then printed it out as an example.  Since we were supposed to make Christmas crafts, I chose one of my favorite Christmas carols - It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.  I lined out my pillow case in pencil (it took several tries), then started slowly free handing the lettering in pencil by looking at my printed template.  After that I just went back over my penciled letters with my two fabric markers.

It was so much fun to make (and pretty easy, too!) that I think I will have to use the rest of the canvas material and make a few more with other Christmas carols.  I'm so excited to decorate with them for Christmas this year!  They will match my music tree perfectly!





2 comments:

Samantha said...

I love it!!!

annajanine said...

I just LOVE that, Melanie!! Totally stealing it!!

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