DIY Silhouette Throw Pillows

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday with you families and loved ones. I know I did! For Christmas this year, Matt and I decided to spend $0 on each other. No money at all. We could use our skills and jobs to trade what we could, Matt's in radio so he gets a lot of perks, and I could trade lingerie for goods if need be, or make him something. And I did the latter. I used fabric and scrap things from my house to make him silhouette pillows for our bedroom. I didn't spend a penny, and I gave him a beautiful handmade present.

For these pillows, you will need:

• felt
• four same size piece of fabric, I used white linen napkins
• pictures of your faces, in silhouettes
• two sheets of white paper
• your computer screen (unless you draw really well)
• an old pillow or two, or pillow stuffing
• matching thread for felt and fabric

Start with your pictures. Open the silhouette pictures in photoshop or a photo editing program and make the contrast as high as possible, making the silhouette very bold. Trace on a sheet of paper. Cut out. Place paper over felt and trace onto the bad side of the felt. I used a permanent marker for this. When cutting the felt, be sure to cut on the inside edge of the marker line. Flip the silhouette over and you are ready to sew.

It took me for-e-ver to find a profile picture of Matt in my thousands of pictures, but I found an outtake from our Michigan trip this past summer when he was taking a picture of the sunset on Lake Michigan. I used my cover shot from the summer issue of the Augustan. 

Center your silhouette on your fabric square/rectangle. Pin your felt to the fabric, and head to your sewing machine. Release the tension on your presser foot. This allows you to move freely and takes the pressure of the presser foot. You can find this on the top of your machine, in line with the needle, or on the side, depending on your machine. Sew! Trim threads and finish pillow construction. (Don't forget to clip your corners!) For a pillow tutorial for those of you who aren't experience seamstresses, click here and here.

If you aren't using a zipper to close your pillow, be sure to leave a small opening to stuff the pillow. Want to be completely green when making these pillows? Find those guest pillows you keep in the closet for when family comes to visit and use the stuffing from those so you don't have to go buy new stuffing. Or shred all your scrap fabric and use that as stuffing. 

Maybe Matt was thinking he'd get something a little more manly for Christmas, but he loves these. And they are perfect in our room!

Questions? Comments!