DIY Monogrammed Pillows

As a newlywed, I'm so excited to have a new monogram and to share a last name with my husband.  I wanted some way to display our newly-married initials, and decided monogrammed pillows for the bedroom the perfect way. 

Like most ideas I have, I knew it could be easily DIYed. A quick Google search led me to this awesome tutorial by Kristen F. Davis Designs. It was a really inexpensive and easy DIY project you could do in an evening after work, like I did.

I won't go through the entire tutorial, because I followed this one exactly, but I'll add in a few tips from the perspective of someone who is a normal-level DIY-er.

I got my monogram templates from the same website Kristen recommended. But rather than free handing, I printed it out. Here was how I made the template:

1. Set the monogram creator to your initials.
2. Zoom in on the website to the maximum zoom (1000%)
3. Take a screenshot (Alt + Print Screen)
4. Open up PowerPoint and set the slide size to 8.5 x 11 (Design - Page Setup)
5. Paste the image into PowerPoint and crop closely to the monogram image
6. Expand the monogram to fill the slide (don't worry if it's pixelated, you'll still be able to see where to cut)
7. Set the background of the image to transparent (Picture tools-Recolor-Set Transparent Color, click on the white background)
8. Repeat the above steps for the other monogram (working in a second slide)
9. Cut and paste monogram #2 onto the first slide and line up both monograms to adjust the size of monogram #2 to the same as monogram #1
10. Cut and paste monogram #2 back to the second slide
11. Print!

Sorry for just getting so technical, but I was feeling really controlling over your project for a minute...

I got 2 white pillow cases from Wal-Mart and picked up the felt and Spray Adhesive from Michael's. [I actually picked up three different colors of felt, as you can see in the background. My indecisiveness kicked in big time in the felt aisle at Michael's. Oh well they were only 33 cents a sheet and I see more monogramming in my future...]

 

Only use the tiniest amount of spray adhesive to attach the template. I used a little too much in one spot and it sort of frayed the felt a little. You want just enough so that it doesn't slip when you're cutting out the felt but not too much that it's difficult to pull off.

I totally misread the directions, and foolishly cut out both the template and then the felt. If you're efficient and follow the tutorial correctly, you'll just affix the whole, intact template  to the felt with spray adhesive then cut out both the template and felt together. I cut out the template, adhered it to the felt, and then cut out the felt.  It still came out right, but I remember thinking while I was doing all that cutting- man this is a lot of cutting!

To find the exact center of the pillow case, I folded it in half both vertically and horizontally and really creased the pillowcase. I had just ironed the pillowcases and they were really low thread-count, so it creased easily. If your pillowcase doesn't leave a crease, try folding it and then lightly ironing where the folds meet to mark the center.

I stuck the center letter in the middle of the pillow case, right where my folds met and then used that as a guide for where to place the other 2 letters (below).

Once I had all three letters placed  where I wanted them, I left them flat and picked up just part of one letter, added the hot glue, patted it down, and then picked up another part of the letter. This allowed me to keep the letters in the right position and work slowly with the hot glue.



Once all the letters are glued, I recommend going back around with the glue gun to make sure all the little corners are secure.