pillow talk - upcycled skirt & rosette pillow tutorial

2013 will be a fun year here at Sweetness Itself Blog. I have so many exciting new things to share with you, my faithful sweet readers, and one of those is sharing more of my passions and hobbies. Those close to me know I'm a huge crafter, and I just love "upcycling" - taking old, tired items and instead of throwing them away, making them into something new! 

In the past few months, I realized how tired I had become of my bedding. Seriously, I've had the same pillows and comforter since college, and it was time for a little update. At this season of life, I don't want to spend money on a whole new bedding set, and so I decided to begin my redesign by updating my old throw pillows. They were tired-looking and outdated, but still held their shape well and were quality. So, I recovered each of them in a different and very unique way, using other old items I had lying around my craft box. I literally did not spend a dime in the re-covering of my old pillows! I shared the process in the past months on my Instagram (follow me if you'd like, search @erin_sweetnessitselfblog) and had a few requests for tutorials so here you go! 

The first pillow I'm sharing is this rosette-covered pillow on the far left: 

Tutorials for the other 3 pillows will be shared soon! I re-covered my old dorm room pillow using a thrifted pencil skirt my friend gave me that didn't fit right. I then added simple fabric rosette flowers and wahh-lahh - a fresh, upcycled pillow to throw on my bed... and I didn't spend a DIME! Have some old, tired throw pillows? You can do this too! Just think "outside the box" and you never know what you might come up with. I'm sharing what I did to recover my pillow, and hopefully you'll be inspired to do the same: 

The skirt happened to fit over the pillow perfectly, and so I just covered it, and pinned where it fit. I then turned the edges of the skirt inward, making a seam and just sewed it up by hand using an invisible seam stitch (a good tutorial for this type of stitch, similar to what I did, here) 

The back of the pillow wasn't store-worthy or perfect, as the zipper line is still visible. But I don't care and it's not that noticeable.

I adore fabric flower rosettes. I love making them out of scrap fabric and I think they are so shabby chic and pretty. I chose some scrap fabric I found on sale at JoAnn's last year - white Dupioni Silk. You will need:

You can use tacky glue (found at Target or JoAnn's) or a hot glue gun. I prefer using the hot glue gun, as it dries immediately & keeps the rosette looking just how you want. Buuuut, be prepared to suffer a few minor finger burns - no fun. So this is a major drawback!)

And continue to twist and glue as you go along in a circle until the fabric runs out and you have a lovely little rosette: 

aaaand, waah-lahh!

I'm no pro-crafter, but I hope you're inspired to take what you have and what you can afford and make it into something beautiful and new! 

Happy Sunday, friends.

I'll be back tomorrow with something sweet. 

XO

Erin