Make Personalized Decorative Pillows By Printing Photos Onto Fabric

Did you know that you can print an image from your computer onto fabric using your home computer.  Freezer paper is the magic ingredient to make these adorable little throw pillows personalized with any photo that you like.    These decorative pillows make an awesome gift, and are a fun and easy project.

We are busy busy this week preparing for a big week next week.  Not only do we have some special Valentines Day projects going on, but both of the kids have birthdays next week.  It is an exciting, fun filled time in our house.  Not a whole lot of new projects getting done if they are not Birthday related.  I thought I would share with you a project that I did around Christmas time last year.

In deciding what we were going to give my in-laws for Christmas last year we landed on getting them things for the new family cottage that they acquired up North.  We found a beautiful Journal that people could leave stories and letters in and a few games to add to the stash of things to do on rainy days at the lake.  When I came across these vintage looking pillows from the December issue of Country Living Magazine on Pinterest, I knew they would be the perfect addition to our gift. The cottage has been in my husband’s family for a long long time.  Everyone in the family has beautiful memories of this quint cottage and the breathtaking lake that it is on.  My Mother and Father -in law even took their honeymoon to the quiet cottage and have spent countless hours enjoying the peace of the North woods together.  I searched through some images that I had on our computer of the cottage, and was so excited to land on two very special photos.  One was of the cottage when it was first built, before any kind of renovations, or additions.  The other was of my in laws after they were fist married taking a small sailboat out onto the lake together.  The perfect photos to make them think of all the years of memories that they have made there together.

So, armed with my photos I was able to create pillows using freezer paper, my printer, some fabric, and the sewing machine.  I followed some very easy directions that I found on-line the first time I tried this trick.  If you would like the step by step instructions on how to create these picture pillows head over to  Pocket Full Of Whimsy .  She gives a great tutorial and even adds in a few other little embellishments to her picture pillows.

I choose to use fabric from a thin white sheet cut to fit into the printer to print my images onto.  The fabric was very thin, and worked perfectly for these pillows.  Basically, all you need to do is iron the freezer paper (shiny side facing the wrong side of the fabric) onto your fabric.  This is to make the fabric “paper” like so that it can be sent through your printer like any old piece of paper.  The fabric “paper” needs to be cut carefully to size so that it doesn’t cause a paper jam when it is being fed through the printer.  Once you have your image edited how you want it you can open it in Microsoft Word and tell it to print the image to fit to the paper size.  Send that paper fabric side faced down through the printer and print your image.  Once you have your images onto the fabric.  You are ready to create the pillows.

I wanted the pillows to be pretty simple, so I choose to use black and white ticking for the back of the pillow.  It seemed to fit with the old photos, and keeps the pillows simple, but pretty.  I simply cut the ticking fabric the same size as the photo covered fabric and put the printed fabrics face to face.  I sewed almost all the way around the pillow, leaving  a spot for stuffing.  I turned my pillow right side out and stuffed them to my liking and closed them using a hidden stitch and coordinating thread.

These little pillows were very easy to make but were a very very special gift to give.  These pillows smaller than an 8 by 10 print because of the seam allowance but make the perfect accent pillows.  Although they are small, they make quite a big impact and I hope to see them sitting up at the cottage with family surrounding them soon!  The possibilities are endless with this fabric printing trick.  You can add dates or quotes, print in color, or make a collage.  I can’t wait to use this trick again.  I was very proud to give these as a gift, and I am positive that it won’t be the last time that I make these little picture pillows.