My DIY Pillows For The Radiator Cover Are Complete!

Hooray!  The Pillows for the Radiator Cover are finally done!

 Take a look at these 4 little beauties I made using burlap coffee bags and linen-like fabric.

  

 I love the little stripes, text and numbers!  The texture turned out to be perfect too!

Thankfully, I ended up getting the 3 remaining burlap coffee bags that were on back order just before I got started on this project, because I liked the look of these bags a bit more than the last ones that I got.  Not to mention I thought the blue color on the stripes and text would work well for what I wanted to make.

3 coffee bags at $2.40 each via Online Fabric Store

Here is the reverse side (which was really cute but sadly wouldn't work well with any of the decor in our house).  So I mainly used the other side.

This is very terrible of me, but I didn't capture the whole pillow sewing process to make a good DIY post.  Honestly, I wasn't in the best mood while working on this... and reruns of the Real Housewives of NYC were on- so I was a little distracted (whoops!).  I just really wanted to get this done and over with since it had taken me a while to figure out what I wanted to do.

Using this close up photo, I’ll try to explain the process I used for making these decorative pillows. Essentially, I cut the burlap to the correct size and used an existing sewn edge for one seam and then double stitched the other sides from the outside.  This left a raw edge, which was sort of the look I was going for.  Since burlap is a very open woven fabric, I used pillow inserts from Ikea instead of stuffing with polyester fill

I did capture a few photos of one of the burlap pillows in progress!  This one was a little trickier. I used linen like fabric to make the pillow then sewed on the burlap as a decorative face for the pillow.

First, I cut out a piece of burlap and pressed it with a hot iron to sew onto the face of the pillow.

Once I had the fabric for the pillow cut out and the burlap to sew onto the face I followed these DIY steps...

 Then fill with polyester batting.  You can use pillow inserts if you would like to by making and envelope closure pillow instead of filling and sewing shut.

Alex knew I was cranky as I worked on these... so he just had to get in one of the pictures to make me laugh (it did work).

Then you are done! Clear as mud right?  I hope that kind of made sense... it was a tough one to describe!

Here are the other 2 pillows I made using the same technique as this pillow I made.  These pillows were sewn using an envelope closure (DIY steps shown in this post).

 

All you need is fabric, fabric paint, and foam brushes.

Since I wanted gray I had to mix black and white because JoAnne's didn't have gray.

Then I measured up where I wanted the lines placed and made a guideline with pencil on the fabric.

Next, carefully paint your stripes on using the foam brush.  It is a little tricky, but you'll get the hang of it fast.

Then tada...

For the full effect of the reveal, we have to look back at the space before Alex built the radiator cover (to see the DIY steps to build your own radiator cover click here).

Now, here is how the radiator cover/ bench looks now with the burlap and striped pillows on top! I added a darker blue throw blanket on the right side. The space is so much better now! 

I thought it was pretty crazy pants... it looks just like my Photoshop creation picture.

I have realized now that this radiator cover project has sort of spawned a bit of a room redo (nothing too crazy though!).  This radiator is in the room we call the Sunroom.  Now that we have decorated the radiator cover I need to put some decor on the walls and maybe get some new curtains in there.  So there should be a few more posts about this little space!  I'm glad we are finally using it (although I guess it is more for looks since I don't know how often we will sit in there)!

Do you have any fun ideas for other decor we should use in this space?  What kind of window treatments would you add above a bench?  I'd love to hear your ideas!