DIY: Old T-shirt → New Pillow

This craft is the best kind of crafts: a present! My friend Lizi's birthday is just around the corner and she just signed a lease on an apartment in the lower east side in NYC. So what better pillow in her new apartment then one that expresses her love for the city!?

Now the irony behind this craft is the shirt I used was once Lizi's own! She had given it to Shelby, who then gave it to me for this pillow! So it's come full circle. 

Supplies:

• Old t-shirt
• Bleach
• Scraps of fabric for the heart
• About 16" by 16" of fabric for the back of the pillow
• Sewing machine

You can see the original color blue of the shirt below, well I was not pleased with it. Which is why I decided to bleach it! 

After about 3 cycles through the wash the shirt was a light blue!

This shirt had a missing heart! Literally! Which is why I used a scrap of fabric to replace the missing love :)

Once the front was finished it was time for the pillow making part. For anyone who has made a pillow before can attest to the simplicity... 

...just two squares (or whatever shape/size!), patterns towards each other, stitch around the sides, leave about 5inches open on one side and fold inside out! 

Now I just have to pack, ship, and send it off to NYC! 

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend!

DIY: Headboard

While home for the weekend I managed to squeeze in a few crafts, including making a headboard! Shout out to the puppy model in this post: Ramses. 

On a side note, this blog is starting to reveal my obsessions ... like chevron print...

What you'll need:

• Fabric!
• Quilting batting
• A piece of wood
• Staple gun (or strong glue)

After gathering supplies, I used my college math skills to figure out the measurements I needed to fit my bed. Now my bed at home is pretty big, like king size big, which is why I used a piece of wood that was 80 inches by 36 inches. Depending on the size of your bed, these measurements will be different. The piece of wood originally was was much bigger than those dimensions, but thanks to my handy-man father the wood was sized to my needs.

I cut the batting and fabric about 2 inches bigger around (about 84 inches by 40 inches) to be bigger than the wood.

While trying to fight off Ramses from snuggling in the batting, we laid it down and flatten it out. 

This is where the staple gun came into use. With the wood on top of the batting, fold over the extra two inches and staple, staple, staple! 

Next came the fabric, which the same step as the batting can be taken. Lay it flat on the ground with the pattern on ground (face down) and put the batting-covered wood over top. 

Below you can see we stapled about every inch to secure the fabric evenly. 

And finally, simply slipping it behind my bed to make a headboard! 

I am so pleased with how it turned out! Helping to fuel my chevron print obsession! Enjoy