Arden and I love craft shows. We love everything even remotely related to a craft show because there are only two of them available to us on network television — the Katie Brown Workshop and She's Crafty. We love Wendy Russell and we watch She's Crafty every night. We don't even care that they play the same five episodes over and over again every week. (Forgive me if we are years behind in the craft show department, we live a sheltered life.)
After seeing the episode where Wendy paints a big cupcake on a pillowcase for the 50th time this month, Arden decided to make one, too. I made the pillowcase for her out of navy blue broadcloth and she took over from there. She wanted to make it exactly like the show and I wish I could find a picture of it online because this looks so much like the original.
Mr. P walked by, wondered what Arden was doing for a millisecond, then asked if he could make his own. It was ten minutes before his bedtime but I caved and whipped up a quick pillowcase for him, too. (How could I say no?) Instead of a cupcake, he painted a skinny apple sliced in half with the seeds showing (his words). I helped him put a white outline around his apple like Arden did but he didn't like it and immediately painted over the edges with his paintbrush.
It was a fun and super easy project to do with kids — and the pillows are so darn cute! If you're interested, here's how to do it:
- Make a pillowcase 18 in. x 18 in. (You know how to make a really quick one, right?)
- Stick a piece of cardboard inside the pillowcase so that the paint doesn't transfer to the other side.
- Draw the shape or image that you want with chalk (or skip this step if you just want to go for it).
- Paint in your image with fabric paint (we used acrylic paint because I'm cheap and I won't be washing these pillows anyway). Use thick layers of paint and let them dry between coats if you want to make the colors nice and opaque.
- When the paint is dry, outline your image with a thin line of white puffy paint. This makes the design really pop off of the dark background.
- Make sure you separate the front of the pillowcase from the cardboard a little bit and let the paint dry.
- Take out the cardboard, stuff in the pillow, and you are good to go!
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In other news today, the lovely Jodi from the delightful blog The Jolly Bee did an interview with me on her blog. Be sure to take a look here. Thanks so very much, Jodi!
