Now that the holidays are over, we can get back to working on some fun DIY geek home decor projects. We started with these easy DIY stenciled pillows, with Batman and Legend of Zelda motifs.
I would say this is more of a semi-DIY project, since we did not make the pillow covers themselves – we only decorated them. If you know how to sew, then by all means, DIY it! These are just standard 20″x20″ covers, which we grabbed at IKEA for $4 each. The inserts were another $3 each, but you can stuff them with whatever you want (we used to always stuff our new pillow covers with old pillows).
We used to make DIY geek pillows with felt and felt glue. You can kind of see one of our old creations (a Batman pillow) in one of the photos of our Legend of Zelda 8-Bit Heart Headboard. We wanted a little more of a modern feel though, so are switching over to paint.
For this project you need:
Throw pillow cover
Acrylic Paint
Fabric Medium (AKA Textile Medium)
Freezer Paper
Spongy stampy paint brush thing
Iron
Fabric Medium is awesome stuff. We first used it a few months ago when we attempted to paint an upholstered chair (the internet promised us that it would work). Yeah…that was a DIY fail. Not all fabrics are meant to be painted, especially if you want your chair to actually be comfy and not feel like crispy canvas. Regardless, we first heard of Fabric Medium then, and are glad we did! You can add Fabric Medium to any acrylic paint, and it turns it into fabric paint. A little goes a long way.
In other awesome-stuff news – did you know that you can print right into freezer paper (the PAPER side! NOT the wax side!), then iron it onto fabric (wax side down) to use as a stencil? Yeah, you can. Do it at your own risk though, since printers vary, but it works fine on our old inkjet. We found a great Batman stencil courtesy of Trinity Comics. If they weren’t an hour away, they would be our go-to comic book store. The Legend of Zelda pattern is from Zelda Wiki, but I did some Photoshoppery to make it into a stencil. Here it is, if you want it:
Let’s speed this up a little. Print out your stencil shape onto either regular paper (and then trace into freezer paper), or print directly onto freezer paper if your printer is brave. Cut it out with an x-acto knife. If you’re wondering, freezer paper can be found at grocery stores, next to aluminum foil and whatnot.
Iron, wax side down, onto the pillow cover. This took longer than I expected – we had to go over it a bunch of times to get it to really stick. Be careful not to burn the fabric around the stencil.
Mix Fabric Medium with whatever paint you’re using, as per directions. Make sure to put something between the layers of the pillow fabric, so that the paint can’t soak through. Cardboard, magazine, etc. Stamp the paint mix on, in very light layers. We only did one layer because we wanted the fabric underneath to show through. Subtle geekery.
Peel the stencil off. Done!
Some Fabric Medium brands call for you to wait a few days then heat-set the design by ironing over it. Helps make everything washable, I suppose? We do it for all Fabric Medium projects, even if it doesn’t tell us to.
Of course now we want to fill our whole house with geeky throw pillows. For now we have the Zelda pillow next to our 8-bit fireplace, and the Batman pillow on the couch.
Any DIY geek throw pillow designs you’d like to try?
Our favorite Batman comic books:
Gigi says
January 9, 2014 at 4:40 pmOh, yay, these are so fun!
Lisa says
January 10, 2014 at 2:50 amThey look awesome! I love making freezer paper stencils, and I’m definitely going to have to hunt down some fabric medium now! ^___^
Melvin says
March 17, 2014 at 8:54 amFollowed this tutorial to make my own sweet pillows!! Thanks a bunch! I made a Metal Gear Solid pillow and another featuring Samus from Metroid!. They came out awesome!
Batbaby says
December 17, 2014 at 1:22 pmI really want to make these for our house but freezer paper isn’t widely available in the UK, no idea why not. Do you know if silicone coated baking paper or wax coated greaseproof paper would work? Also, how long approximately did it take to start to stick down and what kind of heat?
ournerdhome says
December 17, 2014 at 6:54 pmHey there – The wax coated paper should work! We ironed on low temp, and the paper stuck down pretty quickly. It should stick as soon as the wax starts to soften/melt. I found a couple of other tutorials that might help:
If you check the comments on this one, they talk about freezer paper in the UK (the commenter calls it butcher paper) – http://www.instructables.com/id/Freezer-Paper-Stencil/
And this one is from eHow UK, and they call it waxed paper: http://www.ehow.co.uk/how_8214407_use-wax-paper-iron-stencil.html
Hope this helps!
Batbaby says
December 18, 2014 at 1:00 amThank you, I tried asking Google if freezer paper and greaseproof/baking paper were the same and it said definitely not, but then again I presume it was thinking about their intended cooking uses, not me making cushions! I’ll be grabbing supplies later on today and making a start before the week’s out so I’ll confirm for any other UK people out there when I’m done 🙂
CaLynn says
January 21, 2015 at 12:49 pmI used your Zelda template for a mug rug! http://www.thecrafties.com/2015/01/zelda-crest-mug-rug/ Thanks:D
ournerdhome says
January 21, 2015 at 12:53 pmThat looks great!! Also, I’m loving your blog. 🙂
Sissi says
October 11, 2015 at 2:39 amVery nice, they look awesome!