A few weeks ago I completed a vintage rocking chair makeover using Fusion Mineral paint. While I worked on that chair, I also started making this plaid pillow using drop cloths and a stencil. It really didn’t take a lot of time, and was a fun way to try out this plaid stencil from Fusion Mineral paint. This was the first time I’ve used a stencil, so stay tuned to see how it turned out, and my thoughts on using stencils!

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Supplies

• Canvas drop cloth
• Paint brush
• Plaid stencil
• Fusion mineral paint Homestead Blue
• Fusion Mineral Paint Metallic Champagne

The Stencil

The stencil I used is called the plaid shirt stencil. This stencil comes with two sheets, one with thicker lines, and one with thin lines.

I started with the thicker lined stencil. I put it down on my drop cloth and made pencil marks in the middle squares as it said in the instructions. This way when you move your stencil you will match up the lines.

Paint the thick lines

I started by mixing some Homestead Blue paint with a little bit of water. It was about half paint, half water. I painted in the lines of the first stencil, and continued moving the stencil until the entire drop cloth was covered.

Paint the thin lines

Next I used the second stencil to paint some thin lines. For this color, I mixed some Homestead blue with a bit of white paint. I wanted a coordinating color but still in the same color family. What’s fun about this stencil is that you can create whatever design you want. I decided to do a thin line right beside the thick line.

Paint thin lines in a contrasting color

Once the blue paint was dry I decided to do a contrasting color with Fusion Mineral paint Champagne metallic paint. This paint is a little bit transparent so I didn’t add any water to it.

Sew an envelope closure pillow cover

Next I just sewed a cushion cover to make a plaid pillow using my simple envelope pillow cover tutorial. If you can sew a straight line, you can make a pillow cover like this.

Final thoughts on my plaid pillow

As you can maybe tell, I wasn’t very careful about staying in the lines of the stencils. I’ve always been nervous about using stencils, because I’m not the neatest painter and I knew that I would eventually get paint on the bottom side of the stencil. That did happen, and it did make some of the lines less crisp than I would have liked. I’m okay with it for this pillow, since it’s supposed to look a little weathered and farmhousey (it sits outside on my rocking chair). But if I were to use a stencil for a piece of furniture or a wall I would want to take more time to make sure it turned out neatly.

Check out these other pillow tutorials!