A lovely way to waste an afternoon

I've had a post in 'draft' mode since the beginning of the month. It consists of a mile-long "May Makeover" list of all the things I wanted to get done around the house this month, including but not limited to: painting many walls, revamping the kitchen, rearranging rooms, moving & painting massive pieces of furniture, and lots of other ambitious things. I even posted about it on Facebook as a teaser. High hopes here, people.

Life being what it is, I've managed to accomplish laundry, cooking, working out, worship, photography stuff, and other everyday tasks. But I'm bummed that nothing that I've wanted to do this month has happened yet. So much for 'making over' this house in May.

However, I did tackle the garage yesterday (which interestingly enough was not on the to-do list; I simply went crazy), and the other day I DIY'd the daylights out of a pillow ... which is what I'm going to write about today, since I haven't done any of the other big, awesome projects I'd intended this month!

DIY Anniversary Date Pillow

I found this super cute pillow on Pinterest:

source

I can never resist anything with text or numbers on it, meaningful or not. I knew I could make something similar, but the likelihood of me actually sewing a new pillow is not good (for one, my sewing machine isn't working, and considering all the other things I "should" be doing around here, getting the machine fixed and then purchasing all needed supplies to make a pillow is out of the question). So I pinned it to my craft board for a Someday project.

But, the other day, I was shopping my house to "style" our bed (always a work in progress) and came across this pillow:

Its been many places all over the house, and finally shoved into the reject pile currently unused pillow stash. Its not really my style anymore, but the biggest downfall is, its totally impractical to have around, because the cover doesn't come off, so how is one supposed to wash away the inevitable kid splatters?

Remind me to tell you about the time I found poop on my white fur throw pillow. *gag*

Anyway, I turned the pillow over and looked at the back .. contemplating ..

Blank canvas! This could be the perfect anniversary date pillow! Or it could be a giant fail, in which case I'll trash it. Nothing to lose, other than time I could have spent mopping. {yeah, right.}

I pulled up Word on the computer and typed out our anniversary, changing the font until I found one I liked that would fit the space. I wound up choosing Book Antiqua. Printed out the numbers as big as I could (high quality copies here, only the best for me!) ...

.. and cut around them to make stencils.

Laid them on the pillow, got most of it positioned to my liking (eyeballed it) ..

After positioning most of the numbers, I moved the dash and the 2 to the next spots, since we have two of those in our anniversary. I guess I could have printed duplicates, but I was in a hurry. Mom mode, you know.

 

And started tracing!

Ta-da!

Then, grabbed my black fabric paint and a little brush (borrowed from the boys' watercolors!).

And started painting!

I had to take about 64 breaks to do mom/housewife stuff, take Dax to swim lessons, etc. (thus the reason there are no more 'in progress' photos), but by the end of the afternoon, my pillow was done!

There were a few accidental paint dribbles which I just smeared around, hoping it would look "antiqued." Overall, I'm happy with the result! Looking back, I wish I'd not used so much paint and let the numbers look more stamped/worn. But I like it.

 

Ah, if only that's how my bed looked all the time. Here's how the new pillow really looks in the bedroom:

At least its not thrown face down on the floor! Real life, peeps. Would you expect anything less from your friend here at Momthentic? Bottom line, all that matters about our bedroom is that the boys find it comfy and welcoming enough to hunker down on the floor with Angry Birds and a bag of chips. The truly important stuff, right?

So, at least I've gotten one crafty/décor-ish thing done around here. Maybe I'll manage to squeeze in a few more projects before the month is out! I'll be sure to share them here if I do! I have an absolutely insane idea for the laundry room ....... {evil laugh} ...

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