Fall Decor Idea | DIY Fall Pillow Printable

We are days away from the official start of fall.  My Japanese Maple tree is beginning to turn colors.  The unknown tree in my front yard is turning colors as well.  The temperature outside is starting to cool down.  It was 62 degrees when I left for work on Wednesday.  I had to put on a light jacket to keep from feeling too cold.

…and pumpkin flavored everything is everywhere!

I picked up a new candle from Target on Thursday. Our Target store is going through a reset and nothing is where it was a few weeks ago.  (A reset is when a store resets all of its merchandise, generally in a new locations.  They think they are doing all of their customers a favor by placing items in a better order.  However, it just makes it harder to find all the things they moved.) As a result of the reset, I had to walk around to find the items for which I was looking.  At that moment I was in desperate need of body wash.  Not only did I find the body wash, I also found this beauty:

MY CONUNDRUM

Fast forward to the weekend. I have my new candle; it smells amazing!  I have the new mustard yellow pillows for the living room and a cute sign for the entry way. (You can read more about those pillows and the cute sign here.)  I started putting out all of my latest finds.  The only issue was that the couch looked like it was missing something.  Another pillow perhaps?

I just brought home four new mustard yellow pillows meant for fall.  We already have an unreal amount of throw pillows in our house. I really felt that if I was going to do something fall pillow related, it was going to have to be DIY.

INSPRIATION

I went to Pinterest for ideas.  I searched for a bit until I found the one! I fell in love with this lovely pillow cover from Linen and Ivory called Organic Apple.  Prices start at $29.  You can get in natural linen or white canvas.  Sizes range from 16″ to 20″.  You can get just the cover or with a pillow insert.

I love this pillowcase.  It would be so easy to buy it and have it delivered. However, I just spent a ton of fall decor.  I needed to stick to the original plan: DIY.

FALL PILLOW PRINTABLE

With inspiration from Linen and Ivory, I created this in Photo Shop:

I then headed to Hobby Lobby to pick up some fabric and an invisible zipper.  I also headed to Staples to pick up some ink jet t-shirt transfer paper.  I don’t have a fancy screen printer, so I was going to be doing this 1980’s iron-on style.

Once I returned home, I printed the image on to the transfer paper.  This allowed me to gauge how big of a pillow I could really sew.  I was thinking it would be somewhere between 16″ to 20″.  After I printed the transfer paper image, I was able to see that I should stick with a smaller pillow.  A larger pillow would be mostly pillow and very little graphic.  I really wanted the look to be similar to the Linen and Ivory pillow case.  Smaller it was going to be!

I then sewed my pillow.  I am not showing any photos of that process because it was just plain ugly.  I had never sewn a pillow with a zipper before. Let’s just say that there were a lot of seams ripped and multiple tries.  It came out well in the end, but it was certainly an ugly process.

At this point the pillow case has been sewn.  The transfer paper paper has been printed.  It was now time to iron the image on to the pillowcase.  The instructions that came with the iron-on transfer paper noted that I should use a hard table top, a pillow case as a base between my project and the table top, and a very hot iron.

I placed a pillow case on top of my coffee table as it has a marble top.  I placed my newly sewn pillow case on top of the other pillow case.  I heated my iron.  After the iron was hot, I used steady, hard pressure on the transfer paper with my iron for 3 minutes.  I moved left to right several times.  I then moved top to bottom several times.  After ironing, I let the paper cool for about two minutes.  I then slowly removed the transfer paper, beginning in the lower right hand corner.  (You can start in any corner.)

THE REVEAL

After I removed the transfer paper, this is what I had made:

I paired my new pillowcase with mustard yellow pillows.  Now the couch looks right.  I think Laila likes it, too.

I like how the white breaks up the darkness of the couch as well as the gray and mustard yellow throw pillows.  The couch is the darkest item in the room.  I have stregically placed this piece with so many other light colored items.  You can see from the photos that the walls are painted a light gray.  The trim is white.  The ceiling is white.  The accent chairs are off-white.  The coffee table has a marble top that is mostly white.  The offsetting items keep the sofa from feeling out of place.

Here is another view of that side of the living room.  You can see the coffee table in this view.  Also, there is Mimi playing with her ball.  I would like to say that Laila is modeling for me, but she isn’t. Laila is keeping out of Mimi’s way. Mimi gets a little wild and runs around a lot when she plays with her ball.

MAKE ONE FOR YOURSELF

Love this idea and want to make your own pillow?  You can sew your own pillowcase or buy one.  Use this downloadable template to make your very own copy!  Print to iron-on transfer paper, iron to your pillowcase, and enjoy!