DIY Decor & Crafts

Pillows for Sale?

Published on November 8, 2010November 9, 2010 by Our Humble Abode11 Comments

It seems last week’s herringbone pillow tutorial was a hit, so I’m back with a follow-up of, you guessed it, more pillows.

About a year ago, I created this pillow to resemble our house. Simple and cute, I think. I don’t think this has popped up in any photos, either, so I thought it was time to share.

The most difficult part was creating the siding, keeping it even and straight. To recreate the siding, I used a linen looking cotton and folded it to create pleats. Then I used felt and fleece to add the detail of windows, doors and plants.

Now, I know these pillows have made a brief appearance in the past, but no explanation has been given.

When we turned the nursery into a big boy room the first time, I make a V monogrammed pillow to go with the new look.

I cut my letter out of the fabric, leaving a 1/2 inch allowance on all sides. To get clean edges, I folded the 1/2 inch over and used hem tape to glue the edges. I pinned the V in place and hand stitched a zigzag all around the edges using embroidery floss. The pillow cover is an envelope closure with buttons keeping it tight. See the little elephant pillow? I found an outline of an elephant online, printed it to size, traced the design on my fabric and embroidered the design using a back-stitch.

For a little more pillow talk, how about these beauties over at Urban Outfitters?

I love the texture of these! I feel confident that I could recreate the Ruffle Maze pillow and the Tuxedo Ruffles Curved pillow, but I have no clue how to make the texture of the Hand Quilted Velvet pillow.

Now, onto the title subject. I have considered adding pillows to my Etsy shop, would you like to be able to buy my pillow creations? I don’t think I can accommodate custom orders at the time, but I would like to have a nice selection available. However, I can’t justify sewing a million pillow covers for myself, so I would love to know if people out there would like to order something. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Herringbone Pattern Pillow

Published on November 5, 2010October 9, 2012 by Our Humble Abode43 Comments

While the boys and I were wandering the aisles of Target, I spotted this beautiful Fieldcrest pillow.

The only color Target carries is this grey, and we don’t have much, if any, grey in our house. After inspecting it for a few minutes, I felt confident that I could create something similar. Luckily, Joann Fabric is within walking distance of Target, so that was our next stop. I bought a relatively thick light blue fabric on clearance, then we went home and got to work.

To make a herring bone textured pillow, you’ll need:

Fabric, at least two and a half times as much as the pillow size you want.

Pins

An iron

Pillow stuffing or a pillow form

Optional:

Hem tape

To make the pillow, first, cut strips of fabric into rough 4 inch wide pieces. I made strips that were the entire length of my two yard piece. Cut several strips, then fold in half and iron to create a nice, straight edge. I chose to add hem tape, just to make sure things couldn’t move around when I started sewing.

Once you have your strips pressed, cut a piece of fabric one inch larger than the desired finished pillow size; this is the backing piece you will sew your strips to. Fold in half or measure to find the center of the fabric. Mark with a pen or pencil.

Now you’re ready to start cutting, pinning and sewing. Place the first strip of fabric at a 45 degree angle from your center line. Trim the end to match the edge of the pillow. You don’t have to do this, but it will help keep everything straight. Pin in place. Place another strip over the top of the first piece, but make a 90 degree angle. Cut the bottom piece at the end of the one on top. You will sew over it, but you don’t want the pieces to be short.

Keep overlapping pieces, pinning in place. I would suggest doing a few at a time, then remove and sew into place. Allign the edge of your presser foot with the folded edge of the strip and sew one at a time. Make sure your pattern stays straight and your pieces are overlapping in the same order.

Repeat until you reach the other end.

Follow this tutorial to create an envelope closure, then stuff and enjoy!

To see other pillow ideas, check out this felt circle pillow cover I recently shared or these inspiration ideas from Etsy.

Turkey Day

Published on November 2, 2010October 9, 2012 by Our Humble Abode18 Comments

Now that Halloween is over, I am officially in Thanksgiving decorating mode. To kick things off, I created cute turkey place cards.

If you would like to make some for yourself, you’ll need:

One bag of mixed nuts, in the shells. Pull out the walnuts and hazelnuts.

Hot glue gun

Dried, pressed leaves. If you don’t have pretty leaves to dry, fake leaves or paper would work, too.

A black pen

Oogly eyes or cardstock circles with black dots drawn in

Colored cardstock for beak and feet. I used an old cereal box for the feet.

To start, glue the hazelnut, pretty, slightly pointed side forward, to the top front of the walnut. Again, the walnut should have the slightly pointed area to the front. Then, write each guest’s name on one leaf. Find similar sized leaves (4 more) for each turkey. Glue the name leaf to the back at the center of the walnut. Glue the remaining leaves and cover the glue from the previous leaves.

Cut ‘feet’ out of cardstock or thin cardboard. First, make a slightly rounded ‘V’ shape about 1 inch long.

Cut toes by making another rounded ‘V’ in the center. Then cut two more ‘V’s, totaling four toes. Add a dollop of glue to the back of the V and place the walnut on top, making the turkey stand.

To make the face, use an all purpose glue to attach the eyes. For the beak, cut a small piece of cardstock, fold in half, and cut again into a triangle. Add glue to the V of the triangle and glue to the hazelnut. Then, you’re done!

Top each place setting with a turkey and get ready to feast.

Isn’t he cute? And, when you’re done, you can eat him. Sort of like eating the chocolate Easter bunnies.

Oh, here’s another cute idea. Well, I think it’s cute. Remember these felt leaf bowls I made? Well, why not create a few more and use them as individual bread baskets? We always have so much food on the table and so little room for each person. This can limit the large platters on the table, and it’s something cute for guests to take home.

If you don’t want to take the time to use tweed, you could just cut out several felt leaves, stitch the darts together and use a felt only bowl. The leaf bowl above used a 6 inch, from top to bottom, excluding the stem, template.

Post Halloween Fun

Published on November 1, 2010October 9, 2012 by Our Humble Abode88 Comments

Usually, I don’t get very into Halloween, but this year, Vincent really did. You’ve seen the decorating we’ve done, including a feather wreath, spooky tree, a stump side table, and carved pumpkins. Although this isn’t home related, I just had to share our boys’ costumes. Vincent requested to be a credit card. Seriously, I did not suggest it. What three-year-old wants to be a credit card? Mine, I guess, so I went with it.

I bought one piece of foam core from Hobby Lobby for $1.99 and cut it in half. Then I measured and taped off lines to mimic a VISA card logo. I mixed up my paint and filled in the areas and letters. To create the letters, I printed off a set of 16 numbers, cut them out, painted and glued each number on the card. To create the back, I simply measured and taped off a magnetic strip area on the back, painted it black, made a border for the signature and filled it in with a Sharpie. To make this wearable, I hot glued two strips of ribbon over the shoulders.

Total cost for a credit card costume: $1.99. The look on Vincent’s face: Priceless.

I decided that Everett would make the perfect baby Hulk Hogan, so we used a pair of red sweatpants, red socks, and a plain white, long sleeve shirt from his wardrobe.

I sewed a ‘tank top’ out of yellow felt, left over from this pillow, using a shirt of his as my size guide. Gaudy gold fabric for $2.00 made the perfect wrestling belt, which I sewed to the yellow felt. I bought a small piece of red cotton for $1.99 to make the ‘Hulkamamia’ logo. To create the logo, I used left over fusible webbing from my tweed leaf bowl project and followed the same directions, only drawing the logo backward on the paper. I ironed the logo to the front of the shirt, added three buttons to the back and we had a Hulk shirt. A $.99 red bandana completed the look.

Total cost for Hulk Hogan: $4.98

Grand total for Halloween costumes: $6.97

Vincent’s costume was a big hit. Everett’s didn’t get as much attention, but he wasn’t standing at the door asking for candy, either. What are your favorite costumes?

Almost 2011?

Published on November 1, 2010 by Our Humble Abode1 Comment

That’s right, folks. We’re only two months away from a new year. What does that mean? You’ll need a new calendar, of course! Look no further because Our Humble A{Bowe}d’s 2011 calendar has been released.

This 5 inch wide by 7.75 inch tall 2011 desk calendar features a light grey faux bois background with seasonal word formed in the grain. Days of the week, numbers and months are charcoal grey. Each month features a different color border.

This calendar can be customized with new colors and words, so please ask!