Love Balloon Pillow

I guest posted over at icandy handmade over the weekend for their amazing Pink Week. You have to go check it out! 

Supplies:

Burlap - 15" was the size I used. Make it bigger if you want.

Scraps for the hearts, cotton and felt

Yarn or embroidery thread

Big needle

Sew machine

Pins

Fabric paint

Sponge brush

Iron

Scissors and/or Exacto knife

Ruler

Fabric pen

Instructions:

1. Cut out your burlap to the desired size. Mine were 15" x 15"

2. Cut your hearts out (I just folded a piece of fabric in half and cut a half heart. Then use a heart shape I liked and traced with that while layering 3 or 4 pieces of fabric). I cut about 13 or 14.

3. Print out a picture of a tandem bike from freezer paper, then cut it out with an exacto knife or scissors or buy a stamp and dip it into the fabric paint (I used a die cut machine)

4. Cut out the word love from freezer paper with and exacto knife or scissors or buy love stamp or the letters l-o-v-e and dip it into fabric paint (I used a die cut machine)

5. Iron on the freezer paper of a tandem bike and sponge paint it on

6. Iron on the freezer paper of the word love to a piece of felt fabric that has been cut into a heart shape and sponge paint it on or wait till the very end after all the hearts have been sewn on.

7. Arrange 13 + cut out hearts in the way you like to the burlap and pin them on. 

8. Sew the hearts onto the burlap with a straight stitch, make sure to place the big felt love painted one near the center.

9. Then thread some yarn or embroidery thread in a big needle and sew it through the burlap to make it look like the strings from the heart shaped ballons. First sew a knot on the underside of the burlap somewhere on the tandem bike. Then thread through out the tips of the hearts and back to the bike till almost all balloons have strings. Then when done, knot the bottom of all the strings together and wrap it around a few times, then knot on the under side.

10. Pin and sew the opposing square right sides together, leaving a 3 to 4 inch opening. 

11. Cut the edges off and turn right side out. 

12. Stuff the pillow with batting. Here I used a the filler from a $1 IKEA pillow. Filled 3.5 pillows with one.

13. Because Burlap frays easily, I glued the opening shut first and secured it with pins. Then after it dried, I hand stitched it closed. 

*Optional - Iron the sides stitches more flat.