Marie Antoinette Pillow … tres chic!

 

 

A couple of weeks ago I made a Chanel inspired French graphic pillow.  It graced one of a pair of Lloyd Loom chairs.  The other chair, a rocking chair, sulked.  I was playing favorites.  Not at all.  I was searching for the perfect graphic to compliment the cushion that promised chocolate, eclairs, mounds of whipping cream.  It could only be  Marie Antoinette,  the French queen of decadence and over-indulgence.  I found the French queen on Graphic Fairy.  Now she adorns a pillow trimmed with Chanel inspired black ribbon.  Tres chic.

It is so simple to make these cushions.  You know where to go for the graphics and the T-shirt transfer paper can be found at any office supply store or craft store.  This is how you create an exquisite pillow for just a few dollars.  This is decorating on a dime!

It’s important you press the pillow fabric and the pillow slip.  Absolutely no creases.  You use the pillow slip when you are pressing the transfer onto your pillow fabric.

Cut out your image as close as possible to the edges.  I small, very sharp pair of manicure scissors works best.

Mark the centers top and sides using an erasable fabric pen.    This will be your guide lines for centering your image.

Put the image printed side down on your fabric.  Measure carefully.   You don’t want your design to be off-center or crooked.

Read the instructions carefully on your t-shirt transfer kit.   Once the image is in position you iron it on with a hot iron.  NO STEAM.  Your instructions will tell you how long you need to iron the image.

Wait a couple of minutes for the paper to cool.  Then gently lift up a corner and start peeling back the paper.

Finished.  Since you are making  this up into a pillow you can ignore the instructions for preparing a t-shirt transfer for washing.    Just remember when you do have to wash your beautiful pillow you turn it inside out and wash in cold water and line dry.

Discard the transfer paper.

Sew on your Coco Chanel inspired ribbon trim BEFORE you sew on your self piping.  It’s easier.  If you are not a sewer you can still create this pillow.  Ikea has white pillows.  A fabric store will have the fuseable webbing that let’s you simply iron on the ribbon to the pillow cover.

Voila!!  Finished!!  That’s all there is to it.  Now you know how to use T-shirt transfer paper think of all the fabulous things you can do.

Now the rocking chair that was sulking because she didn’t have a lovely pillow is happy.

These pillow are so pricy in the decorating shops.  A yard or so of white cotton fabric, a bit of ribbon and a transfer paper kit is all it takes to do this “decorating on a dime”.

I so fell in love with this portrait of Marie Antoinette I am thinking I will do a colour transfer next.  Perhaps something funky with lots of silk and velvet, gold tassels and braid.    After all Marie was certainly over-the-top.