Have you tried fabric markers yet? I finally got around to it, and they work great. Paired with a stencil you can use them to stencil your favorite quote on a tea towel, apron, t-shirt, table runner, pillow cover, place mat, cloth napkin, old pair of blue jeans—anything you can think of!
Supplies:
fabric item you want to stencil on (this shop has some great linen pillow covers)
some cardboard
a pencil
a letter stencil (I have this one.)
a fabric marker (I loved my black Sharpie fabric marker!)
After choosing your quote, wrap your fabric over the cardboard to keep the marker from bleeding through and to keep the fabric stretched out smooth.
Use a pencil to stencil your quote onto the fabric. If you mess up the spacing you can erase the pencil lines and redo them. You can’t fix mistakes when you’re using the fabric marker, so don’t skip the pencil step.
Once you’ve penciled everything in, go at it with your fabric marker! I found it easiest to use the stencil for the outline of each letter, and then remove the stencil to fill the letters in.
The Sharpie fabric marker packaging didn’t say anything about heat setting the ink, but I will probably press my fabric before I wash it, just to be safe.
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So awesome! Nicely done. I also came across this super cute DYO pillows on thegoodiebag.com. Bubbles, Tag Wall , Hearts, and more.
When I type thegoodiebag.com it brings up Megenta.com.
amazing. i love it. I’m going to do Annabel Lee for my pillow. my favorite poem. <3
I am having trouble finding stencils that work well. What size did you use?
I used a 1.25″ stencil. The link to the stencil I used is included above.
I really loved your pillow tutorial, so I bought the fabric sharpie markers, the stencil, and lots of linen (I want to make a couple of different pillows), and I’m mid-way through my first one. It’s looking great so far, but I’ve already used almost the entire blue marker! I was just wondering if you used more than one marker? Your letters are so dark and perfect, and to get mine to look like that I’ve had to go over it a couple of times.
Thanks!
Amanda
My black marker was able to do the whole pillow and never ran out of ink. I wonder if the blue ink isn’t as dark, so you have to use more ink to get good coverage? The black one covered in one coat mostly, and I only had to touch up a few places.
What a great idea.
I love words on anything, and I’m with you, more than $100 for a pillow seems kinda steep. This way it’s totally custom.
Thanks so much for tip.
All the best,
Nannette Eaton
I adore this! I want to stencil words onto quilt squares and was wondering if you think that this is something that would hold up well to a lot of washes?
Thanks!
OMG! Making this into a quilt is a FANTABULOUS idea!!! I have been saving little pieces of paper with quotes for the longest time. And large shams to match. I have a new project!!!!
Sue, make sure it’s a fabric pen. I used a fabric pen (fine point) on my grandson’s quilt to sign it. It’s been washed a few times and the ink looks good as new.
I love your pillow and your blog too – it’s lovely here! I’ve got this linked to my stenciling project post today, for inspiration!
the lorax! what a great quote. thanks for posting this. i have been looking for a great linen pillow cover!
I recently came across your blog via design sponge and I have enjoyed reading your back list of posts…
Mabel completely caught my eye in this one though… what breed is she? She is adorable.
Congrats on the 1000 orders. I’ll be sure to order something one day. Assuming you post to UK. I’ve been admiring the hive print
Mabel is a schnauzer/poodle mix. Isn’t she the cutest? Oh, and I do ship to the UK. :)
Absolutely the cutest. Will get my wish list sorted! Thanks for the Lullatone music link. Perked up the remaining hours of my work day no end.
I LOVE your work, your photography and your blog – thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
I’ve just move to the US from Australia and trying to figure out which direction I want to take my passion and education in design and although I’m swimming with ideas and still unsure, you’re a great inspiration!
Creative juice is infectious!
Thanks so much Lucy, and welcome to the US! :)
oooh, pinning this to try later. looks great.
This is such a great idea! I’m trying it out soon. Thank you:)
I love this idea! What exactly did your quote say??
My quote says: “We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.” ― Dr. Seuss
What a cute quote! I almost cry every time I read DR. Seuss’ Birthday Book. Maybe something from that book will be worthy of a pillow or something else…
Love your idea! You’re right $150 is steep for a pillow, although I seem to remember Carrie Bradshaw owning a $300 pillow. haha Nice job and thanks for sharing! Totally want to do one of my own now!
I love it!! I’ve included in my proposals for San Valentin.
Thank you!
Thank you so much for this, i made one for my son, for his birthday/first rental home. I did mine on calico and instead of using pencil lines (cause wasn’t game to see if they would rub out on calico), I cut a 2cm strip of masking tape and used it as my guide line. I would like to post it on my blog and link to your blog, if you’re ok with that? I plan to make some more, might play around with the fonts too. One very cool idea!
This is wonderful. I like yours better than the Vivaterra version, personally. Thanks for posting this DIY. :)
Hey! I love this idea, but i was wondering if you wrote directly on the pillow or if the cover came off your pillow for you to write on it?
I purchased just a pillow cover to stencil on. I later purchased a pillow form from the fabric store to stuff the pillow cover with.
Love that pillow…but can’t find the Sharpie fabric pen??
Have been to JoAnns, Michaels and Craft and Stuff..Where did you get yours and do you think it will work on burlap?
Thanks!!!
I found my Sharpie fabric pen at Office Depot, and they also have them on amazon.com. I don’t know if they will work on burlap or not, but it’s worth a try!
Can you wash the pillow cover or will the ink run?
Since it’s a fabric marker it should be washable. I would iron it to heat set it first, just to be safe.
I made one for my girlfriend for Valentine’s day. Thanks for your post/advice!
Time-lapse video of me making it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgzz-b9FeIo
It looks awesome! I love the video!
They make a marking marker that you can pick up at the fabric section of a hobby/craft shop. The one I have makes a purple line, but will fade after a wash. I think I’ll try that when I do one. Thanks for the idea!!!
This is such a good idea and perfect for the home or a gift regardless of what the quote says!
I love this idea. Its so simple. I plan to make one with things my Mom used to say, something cool to remember her by! Thanks for the idea.
What about the pillow behind your stenciled one, did you make that yourself?
I wish! That one is from West Elm. :)
Wauw! That’s a great idea, nice photography also.
Does anyone know of a good/cheap place to buy linen fabric or pillow covers? I plan to make a few also, but with song lyrics.
I got mine at JoAnn Fabrics.. I bought mine today & the linen was $9.99 a yd but being a pillow I didn’t pay much since I didn’t need that much. They didn’t have covers so will sew my own. I got 2 different colors one for each side. Am doing song lyrics for my grand daughter’s bed.
Thank you – This is a wonderful project I plan on soon. I have material that needs attention :)
This makes me happy!
take care -
I look at the Viva Tera pillow all the time and this is the perfect solution for not spending a ton of money! Thank you thank you thank you!!!
Totally amazing idea.
I saw this done on canvas as wall hangings and loved it. I actually took photos of them for reference but wasn’t sure how to proceed..thanks for this great tutorial!!
A great (inexpensive) fabric option if you are doing a large project or multiple pillows is a fabric drop cloth. They come in various weights and sizes and have a natural, rustic finish.
Looking forward to making these~
In so many words, this is awesome. Thank you for sharing your tutorial with me today.
Smiles,
Carol
this is a great idea!My best friend is getting married in a few months and i am making her and her husband a blanket for their wedding gift. I was going to sow on a quote i found for her and after several failed attemps at sowing words on straight i almost gave up. Do you think that a fabric marker would work on a large throw blanket? will the ink wash out? If you could get back to me on this it would be much help. Thanks
Wow, amazing!
You just make stunning designs. Love your shop too, it’s definitely one of my favourites ;-)!
I love this! It would make a great gift, as you could make the words personal.
Oh my gosh! Lovely idea! And love the picture with your dog Mabel, what type of dog?
She’s a schnauzer/poodle mix, and the sweetest dog you can possibly imagine!
Our dogs are twins! cute pic, great idea.
Absolutely love this….i sang that song every night to my now 24 year old when he was a baby!
Hi! i love it!, I was wondering if a sharpie permanent pen would work nice on the fabric, its kind of hard finding fabric markers in México. Have a great day!
When i saw this i bookmarked it right away. I Love it so much im making it for my living room ;)
Hey! I made this cushion yesterday with a different Dr Seuss quote and I lovee it! Thanks for the great idea and clear instructions :) xo
Hi!
This is very inspirational and useful for a student with a small budget. Do you think the sharpie fabric markers would work on a polyester cushion, or should I try to get a linen one??
Thanks :)
Love this idea! Do you think you can do this on a store bought pillow instead of stuffing it yourself?
You can do it on a purchased pillow cover, that’s what I did. You will need to stencil on a pillow cover with no stuffing insert so you can have a flat surface to work on. A pre-stuffed pillow won’t work unless you can remove the stuffing temporarily while you work.
Love love LOVE this! How crafty! I am a writer not an artist but, when the 2 find eachother…watch out world! =) (I see ol’ Wal-MArt has the Sharpie Fabric Markers now too!!!)
Just ordered a set of fabric markers, stencils and some framed canvas from dick blicks website! So excited. Im going to stencil our wedding song on three 10×10 canvas squares for over our bed. I also got some exta canvas to make one for my sisters wedding gift. Want to try the pillow at some point too. Thanks for the inspiratipn!
how amazing is this. thanks for the tips!
This is wonderful and I’d love to try it, but I’m curious about one thing: how did you know how much space to allow for each letter/word/line? It’s so well done, but I’m afraid my lettering might come out wonky.
I just eyed the letter spacing. If you look closely there are a lot of words on my pillow that have messed up spacing, but I figure imperfections are the beauty of making something by hand! I just stenciled the letters on roughly with pencil first, and then as I went back and stenciled with the marker I made changes if necessary based on the pencil lines. Hopefully that helps!
Yay I love this so much. I stencilled a calico cushion cover i made for my sister’s birthday with a quote she really liked, and she loved it so much!!! So a huge thank you for such a great idea!!
Love this. It looks so nice on linen. I think I now have some wedding gifts figured out. Thanks