Dream Bubble Pillowcases - Cute Wedding Gift Idea and Tutorial

My cousin's daughter was getting married and I knew I wanted to make something.  Usually I'm a stickler about keeping to the registry (since there's a good reason those things exist!) but I wanted to give them a little something interesting and unique.  Besides, by the time I got around to ordering a gift I realized it wouldn't arrive in time for the wedding.  Oops! 

So I turned to my newly-discovered provider of ideas wonderful, unique and fabulous -- Pinterest.  I did a quick search for "wedding gift" and ran across lots of great ideas.  Including this one:

I thought it was rather adorable and knowing the happy couple is very fun-loving I decided it would be perfect.

So I headed on down to my local Bed Bath and Beyond to pick up some plain white pillowcases.  ... I was blown away by the prices!  Holy cow!  Who pays $60 for two pillowcases?!  Yeah, so they're 750 thread count, so what?  I just need something basic.  The most basic they had was 200 thread count for $15.  I still think that's a bit much.  Unless, of course, they are sewn in the USA with fair wages and decent working conditions... which I doubt.  (But that's a rant for a different time and place)  I picked them up anyway because I didn't have time to go anywhere else.

I pre-washed them so it wouldn't cause any problems if it shrank after painting.  I'm not sure if that step was necessary, but I've seen far too many things bunch up in strange ways because they were not pre-shrunk.

Using a water-erasable marker (found in the sewing notions department of a fabric/craft store) I drew a cloud and circle shapes. If you don't get it right the first time, just redraw until you do.

If you want to you can erase the lines you won't use prior to painting, but you MUST be sure it is completely dry before painting. I'll show you what happens if you don't later.

I used this textile paint:

Using a foam brush (to better achieve a sharp edge) I painted around my outline.

At one point I messed up and smeared some of the paint. So I tried wiping it off with a damp cloth. It worked well enough that I could just paint over the worst part of it, so I did. BUT I didn't let it dry completely beforehand, so when I painted over it the paint bled.

Noooooo!

So if you need to correct mistakes or erase guide lines, make sure it is totally, completely, 100% dry before you continue painting! Unless you want the paint to bleed... which could be cool, too, depending on what kind of effect you're going for.

So even though it was a little bit of a fail (including the fact I think I should have placed the circles a little lower to have them point to the cloud in a different place), but I still like the idea and thought it turned out pretty well. At least it was only intended to be a stand-in gift until I sent them something from their registry.

P.S. Did you know Amazon has wedding registry now? Man! I wish they had that when I got married!


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