Daughter #2 found this at Barnes and Nobles and of course you know it caught my eye because of the hounds-tooth that is pictured on the cover.

She wants to do a  wall in her office and sent this home with me to learn the little tricks before we start doing this on a wall.

I have these old outside pillows that has faded so last year I bought some new outdoor fabric and recovered them.

They were a nice bright lime green and matched my outdoor umbrella.  But as you know Texas heat and sun will cause anything to fade.

I’ve decided I will use the stencil on these pillows and see what I need to learn. Luckily, all I have to do is rip out one seam and I have the pillow case ready to get stenciled.

I took a plastic garbage bag and slide it into the pillow case so when I stenciled with paint it would not bleed through to the other side.

I chose this stencil and a chose a clay acrylic paint to compliment the other colors that I have outdoors.

I love the Ranger’s craft mat because you don’t have to worry about anything sticking to it and clean up is easy just a wet wipe and your are done.

To have acrylic paint stay on material you need to add some textile medium to the acrylic paint.  You can find textile medium at your local craft store and it is usually in the same area as the acrylic paint.

I marked off the registry points by putting down some blue painters tape and then drawing the triangles on the tape.  That way when I’m done all I have to do is pull the tape up and there will be no marks left.

I applied the paint with a foam brush and I really didn’t like the way it came out.  For one thing the paint seeped underneath the stencil.  That made the shapes come out ragged at times.

You can see in this photo I had to doctor some of the shapes up and I can make it look better by using a black pen and outlining the shapes.

Also, I think this is too many on the pillow case.  So, not to be out done I flipped the pillow case over and tried it a different way.

I figured out how many would work on this side of the pillow and decided this is one of those cases where less it more.  This is a 16″ pillow and the first side I did 5 shapes across the pillow.  This side I will do 4.

Again, I used tape on the pillow case and marked the registry points, then I took my YR19 Copic marker and drew the shapes in with the Copic marker.  Now a word of caution, these markers will bleed so you need to outline in very short strokes.  The longer the Copic marker stays on the material the more it will bleed.

One of the ways to help stop the bleeding is to heat the fabric, that will make the alcohol ink dry quicker as it hits the material.

Mixed up the paint and textile medium and got a baby wipe out to dab my stencil brush on.  This will take off any excess paint and make the stencil brush a little dry when you first start applying the paint.  That is important to keep it from seeping under the stencil.

I left the stencil in place and using the technique of dipping the stencil brush in the paint, dabbing it one time on the wipe, then very carefully following the outline of the stencil.

Once the outline is done then I dipped my stencil brush in the paint and filled in the center of the shape without dabbing it on the wipe.  You also need to keep in mind that as fabric gets wet it expands, so the stencil helps keep everything in line and proportion.

This process worked a lot better than the other side.  The shapes came out better and it was less messy.

I think they turned out great.  I took a black pen and outlined each shape.

Here they are out on the bench in front of the curtains that we pull together when we use the hot tub.  You can see they work great with our brick.

It will be interesting to see how these hold up in the sun, but at least I get another year out of them.