Hello Friends,

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had this problem.

Fabric is needed for a home decor project, but the right size, shape, or color simply can’t be found. Or even worse, the right fabric is finally found and the price is way out of budget. 

Over the years, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard this headache.

But today is a new day and there’s a new way to deal —starting with a $50 giveaway!

Let me explain.

3 Ways to Decorate with Stencilled Fabric

1. Custom Artwork

Can you believe that this rather large piece of artwork was made from upcycled items and leftover latex paint? The pattern was easily stencilled by shadow painting a Moroccan-style stencil. We love that the entire piece (including the frame) was able to be custom-sized and custom-colored to fit the space. Click here to learn how you can easily make this artwork to fit your space.

This post is sponsored by Cutting Edge Stencils, but all projects and opinions are 100% my own.

2. Custom Window Treatment

Although my laundry room faces West and gets a boatload of natural light, I really didn’t want a heavy fabric topping the blinds and blocking any of this glorious light. My vision for the space was a very light and airy fabric with just a simple pop of color. 

The problem was, I could not find the right fabric anywhere. But what I did finally find was a fabric with colors that I simply adored. From here, my vision for the space was easily created.

How to Make This Stencilled Fabric

Paint

For this particular project, I bought four colors of plain old craft paint (about $0.79 each) and mixed them together to get the colors I really wanted. 

Fabric Medium

And no, I did not add a fabric medium because I wasn’t concerned about stiffness in the fabric created by the paint. In fact, I wanted the stiffness. If the fabric needed to be softer, say if it was touching the skin, then a fabric medium would have been mixed in.

Brush

For this project, I used a #6 stencil brush to pounce the paint. A foam brush would also work. The key is to make sure that the brush holds a very, very light amount of paint that can be applied by gently pouncing, not stroking. A small foam roller would also work.

Fabric

The fabric choice was, like the artwork (above), an upcycled drapery liner. It is a thick, high-quality liner that is upcycled, but perfectly clean, thus making the choice a no-brainer.

Plastic from a roll (located in the paint section of the home improvement store) was taped to the floor and the drapery liner (slick side up) was then secured to the plastic.

But notice all of the wrinkles on the liner?

In order to make the fabric lay flat, I clipped the selvage about every inch on both sides of the liner. This released the pressure so that the wrinkles relaxed.

Note, too, that the selvage could also be trimmed away in order to get the fabric to lay flat. Doing this would easily work for this fabric since there is little concern for raveling.

Stencil

Once the fabric is lying flat and secured to the plastic, it’s time to stencil the pattern. The stencil used for this project is called Entwined. Click here to see this stencil on the Cutting Edge website.

And if a bit of paint leaks, just let the paint dry and then touch it with an artist’s brush in the appropriate color. In this case, I used the green paint to cover a red leak.

Ooooopsie. 🙂

Repeat this pattern over and over until the entire piece of fabric has been stencilled.

For more detailed information about the stencilling process, please click here to visit the “How To” section on the Cutting Edge Stencil website.

When the paint is dry, stitch up all four sides of the fabric using a simple straight-stitch seam and hang on a rod with clip rings.

And then stand back and let the sun. shine. in.

3. Custom Cushion and Pillow Covers

Luckily, I was able to use the leftover fabric to cover a cushion for a chair in the sunroom. And to be honest, I like it so much, I plan to make more fabric to cover the rest of the cushions.

And I probably won’t use any fabric medium on the rest of the cushions either. I compared the stiffness of the fabric to some outdoor fabric that I had and the outdoor fabric was much stiffer. So I think I will give it a try with just the craft paint.

Pillow Cover Kits

But just in case painting yardage isn’t your gig, pre-sewn pillow cover kits are also available in custom colors. 

As an example, my bloggy friend, Sue at Housekaboodle, just wrote a post about how to use one of these kits to make a custom blue and gray pillow cover. It features birds circling a bird cage. Click here to see the complete post.

Another bloggy friend, Micki from Our Crafty Mom, just posted her pillow project, too. She also used blue and gray to create a damask cover.  Click here to see the complete post.

You can also have a look at all of the kits made by Cutting Edge Stencils here.

But for now, two things.

First, if you’d like to save these ideas…

And two — enter the $50 Product Giveaway.  Here’s how:

(1) Enter your email on the entry form below so that the winner can be notified. No spam. I pinky promise.

(2) A box inside the form will open asking you to name your favorite stencil and leave a thought. 

(3) When 1 and 2 are completed, hit the submit button. All done.

Good luck!