Button Pillowcase Tutorial & a Little Bit of Fall

Hello friends! Guess what? It’s fall. My favorite time of year! However, if you live in southern California you sure wouldn’t know it. It is currently 99 degrees here.

Not ok.

But, you know what? I am forever an optimist and will pretend that it’s appropriate to wear sweaters and boots and scarves all day long. Do you know what helps my California-fall-fantasy? You guessed it – decorating. (Ok, maybe you didn’t guess that, but I’ll still give you credit for it). It’s no secret; I miss Colorado in the fall. Actually, I miss it incredibly from September (the start of fall in my book) right up until December 26^th. Then, I’m happy as a clam to be here. But it’s hard to ignore that there are no leaves changing, no crisp morning air and no sign of snow in sight (especially not when it’s 99 DEGREES outside). So, for the past 3 years, I have made every effort imaginable to make fall as real as possible in our little house – that I can control, the weather…not so much. So, here’s a little tour around our house right now.

Did you like those last pictures? I hope so, because I have been working my little tail off to create those pillowcases. Since I now have a sewing machine, there is a whole new world of creative decorating possibilities opening up. They were actually pretty easy. I used a template for the pillow covers similar to this one. Basically, I just measured the fabric about an inch wider than the existing couch pillows and sewed them together with a finishing stitch. Then I added the embellishments on top of it.  Not a big seamstress? That’s even easier – just purchase a pillow, or pillow case that goes with what ever theme you are using, then dress it up yourself. Anyway, we have 6 throw pillows on our couch, I made 3 pillowcases using the red gingham, and then the other 3 I made pillow cases with a muslin-like fabric that I found in the “utility fabric” section at Joann’s. From those 3, I made one with an H made out of buttons, one with 2 orange ruffles on the side and the last with fabric rosettes made with all 3 fabrics. Wanna know how to do it? Ok, you asked…

For the fabric rosette pillow, all I did was make a bunch of rosettes out of the 3 different fabrics – muslin, red gingham and orange. I made all different sizes. Actually, this was the last pillowcase that I made and I just used up the rest of the fabric that I had. Then I arranged them on the pillowcase (without the pillow in it) and I hot-glued them on. Done.

The ruffle pillowcase was the only one that I had to embellish while sewing the pillowcase together.  First, I made 2 strips of orange fabric that were twice as long as the length of the pillow. I hemmed the edges – you certainly don’t have to do this, especially if you don’t have a sewing machine, it will just look a little more “rustic” if you don’t. Then, I ran 2 gathering stiches down the center of the strip. Again, you can hand-stitch this if you don’t have a sewing machine – gathering stitches don’t have to be perfect, just make sure not to tie off either end. Then you take the threads from both stitches and pull on the fabric until it gathers. Do this until your fabric is the size of the length of the pillowcase. Pin it in place, and do the second strip. Pin that one in place, then run a regular stitch down the center of each ruffle. Once you put the two sides of the pillowcase together (right sides together) sew the entire thing together, and when you turn it right side out, there will be your perfectly finished ruffles. (I skipped over a bunch of sewing steps for this, but just follow the instructions for the pillowcase tutorial). Again, if you don’t have a sewing machine and just want to dress-up a purchased pillowcase, then fold the ends over just a little and hand-stitch the ends at the seams of the pillowcase that you bought. Again, they are pillows; no one looks that closely at them. ;)

Ok, so the button pillow is totally my favorite one. There is a bunch of button art circulating around pinterest right now that is adorable and I’m sure there is more button-ing in my future… Anyway, to make your very own button flare, go to Joann’s (or your nearest fabric/craft store) and in the button section, they are bags of like-colored buttons in all different sizes. I bout one bag of red buttons, but I wanted a little bit of orange in there too, so I bought some 3-packs of larger orange buttons. Anyway, I pulled up word on my computer and found a font that I liked, and then I made it really big and printed it out. It wasn’t quite as big as I wanted it to be, so I freehanded it onto another piece of paper. If your printer will print is as big as you want, then skip that step. Anyway, I put a piece of felt over the top of the paper and could easily trace the outline onto the felt with a marker. Then I started hot-gluing the buttons into place. There is no rhyme or reason to this, just start. I tried to do the outlines first, then fill it in, but some are going to overlap and I like that a little better because it gives it some depth (not emotional depth, just physical depth – I’m not that crazy about my arts and crafts…). Anyway, once everything is glued down, cut out the felt around the buttons as close as you can, then simply hot-glue your letter onto the pillowcase. Seriously, I never want to take this one off of the couch. Ever.

Here's a comparison of the couches before and after:

Yes, that's Jeremy's head behind the couch in the first picture - because he's a creep and wanted to be the pic.

Otherwise, most of my fall decorations are the same from last year, you can check out that post here. I did make something new for our dining room table, but you have to wait for my next post for that little treasure. Also, I just wanted to thank everyone who’s been reading my blog. I’m still not really sure where I want to go with this – just arts and crafts, our lives, to include tutorials or not – mostly I don’t know if I want to really try to blog “professionally” or just keep this for friends and family. So, I’ve decided to just keep putting whatever comes into my crafty little brain on here and see where it takes me. And at the end of the day, it turns out that whether I have one follower or a million followers, I’m glad that I put it out there and I’m happy for each and every one of you who do read it.  So, thanks friends!!