Holiday Inspiration - Wood Signs & Burlap Pillows

The Christmas season has officially begun! We hope y'all had a terrific Thanksgiving with family and friends, but since it's already December we've got to start talking about Holiday projects...there are only 23 days until Christmas!

 

Some of our best holiday inspiration comes from catalogues.  We love flipping through the pages of Pottery Barn for holiday décor ideas.  Unfortunately, our budgets aren't limitless, so some of the more expensive items must be DIY'ed!

 

This wood sign is the perfect example of creating an expensive item on a budget.  The PB version costs over $125 while our version was $15.

Supplies Needed:
Wood 12in wide x 54in long x 1in thick
Red Spray Paint
Cream Latex/Acrylic Paint
Wood Stain
Brown Glaze
Polyurethane
Stencil
 

We went to our local home improvement store and purchased a piece of lumber measuring 12 inches wide by 5 feet long and 1 inch thick.  You can either cut the wood to size yourself or ask your home improvement store to cut down it down for you.  The PB PEACE sign measures 12 inches wide by 54 inches long.

 

Once your lumber is cut to size, sand all the edges to a smooth finish. Now stain the entire piece of wood- we used Varathane Dark Walnut.  Once the stain has dried you will then paint on the cream paint.  To allow the stained wood to pop through and give the piece a distressed look we applied Vaseline to the corners and any areas we didn't want the cream paint to adhere.  We recommend applying the Vaseline to areas that would normally have wear, the corners and edges.  Once the paint is dry rub off the Vaseline to expose the dark stained finish.

We used our Silhouette to create a stencil for the PEACE.   Pick a font to your liking, each letter measures 10 x 10 inches. We attached our stencil to the painted lumber using a lot of tape to hold it down.  Then we sprayed the letters with Rustoleum's red spray paint, satin finish.  Once the red paint was dry, we lightly distressed it with sand paper and covered it in a watered down brown glaze (one part brown glaze to one part water).

 

 

 

The final step of this project to seal the wood sign with polyurethane.  This will help protect the sign from outdoor elements. 

 

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The next knockoff project we created was this burlap pillow with jingle bells. The store version cost over $30 for just the cover while ours cost only $5.

 

Supplies Needed:
Burlap - 2 pieces (14in x24in)
Red Paint
Red Bells
Stencil (Silhouette Studio download)

The first thing we did was cut our burlap to size - two pieces (front & back) measuring 14in x 24 in (plus 1/2 inch for seam allowance).   Check out our pillow tutorials here. 

Before you sew the pillow together you will want to stencil on the "Jingle".  We used our Silhouette to create the stencil - we cut it out on a heavy card stock and used a foam brush to paint on the letters.  If you don't have a Silhouette, check out our stencil tutorial here.  For this project we used Valspar's red paint. 

Let the paint dry all of the way and then sew on the bells to the "j", "i" and "g".  We bought the bells from our local dollar store for only $1...woohoo.  Once the bells are secure it's time to sew the pillow together - place the right-sides facing each other and sew along the edge leaving a 6 inch space at the bottom.  Turn your pillow right side out.  Sew the remaining four bells to the corners of the pillow, stuff your pillow with stuffing or a pillow insert, and then sew the pillow closed.  We created a pillow insert for our pillow since burlap is a porous fabric and stuffing sometimes pokes through. 

After only spending $20 on supplies we now have two knockoff holiday decor items!  That makes us really happy!!  We love switching out and updating our holiday decor each year so we are always looking for inexpensive decorations that deliver a huge impact.  We think these two projects fit the bill perfectly!!