I'm not sure that I've ever shared the news here, but about a month ago or so, my mom and I opened a booth space in Louisburg, KS. That's right, we are business owners. Or at least my mom is. I merely help her find the finds, make the crafts, and set up the booth. I'm the hired help! And, just recently, we expanded! We now have two booths side by side which allows us to house way more stuff! And we have stuff.
Within this booth space, I mentioned that I was in charge of crafts and I've been crafting like mad! Our newest creation is a deer head silhouette holiday pillow and I'm kind of obsessed with them! And because I love them so much, I thought I would provide a how-to. Not that I really want you running out and making your own, I would prefer you buy ours, but who I am to keep a good thing to myself. Consider this my holiday gift to you!
First you start with an image. I found a free image and had my dad format it to fit a 15X15 pillow. Next, print out the image. Here is what you need: scissors, a stencil sheet, black permanent marker, Exacto knife, the fabric you want to cut the deer out of out, the fabric for the front and back of the pillow, Poly-Fill to stuff the pillow, and fabric glue.
I cut out the deer head image and laid it on the stencil sheet.
I traced out the deer head using a permanent black marker.
From there, I attempted to cut it with the Exacto knife, but my dad stepped in when he realized I wasn't doing it correctly. I was getting jagged edges and you can't have that!
I took the hollowed portion of the stencil and placed it on the fabric. I traced it out using the marker, but I would suggest a white crayon. (I used those on all of the other pillows we made.) I didn't account for the trace marks bleeding through so I had to make sure to cut a little on the inside of the trace marks.
The cutting out of the deer head took FOREVER! You need a lot of time and a lot of patience. But, he was super cute in the end. So now you need to place it on your pillow front. To find the center, fold the fabric in half and the deer head silhouette in half. I placed it on the fabric and began measuring from the bottom of his chin to the bottom of the fabric and from the beginning of his head to the top of the fabric. From there, I just continued to move him up and down on the fabric until there was the same amount of space between the top and bottom.
Now you're ready to start gluing. I just started at one of the deer head, applied glue, pressed down, and continued all around the silhouette until it was completely glued. After it dried, I went back and lifted the edges to see if any were loose. If so, I just added small amounts of glue.
Here are our fabric choices.
Now it's time to sew. I left this task up to my mom. She pinned the pillow together, leaving space at the bottom so she could stuff the pillow.
She sewed all the around the pillow, stitches showing, until she reached the stuffing point.
And then she stuffed it!
She then sewed up the bottom and a deer head pillow was born!
This was our prototype and it resides in my living room. We have since made two more and we've done things a little differently. Instead of sewing the stitches on the outside edges of the pillow, my mom has turned the fabric inside out and now the stitches are no longer visible. It's just more aesthetically pleasing.
And there you have it! The how-to for the cutest deer head holiday pillow. Is this something you're going to attempt to make or take a little trip to Louisburg to purchase? If you can't make the trip, we can make them to order! Just ask.
Happy Crafting!
XO,
Andrea
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