Burlap is a great versatile fabric that can add some autumnal flair to your home without too much effort. And since during the fall parties go from being porch centered to more living room and kitchen centered, there are a number of things you can do with burlap to add unique touches to your home that will have people asking you where you got them.
Burlap pillows are really simple to make and much cheaper than buying one. I’ve seen burlap pillows for as much as $60 when I know the materials cost less than half that. Burlap is a pretty porous fabric so you don’t want to simply make the pillow out of the burlap. The best way is to make a plain pillow using a color similar to the color burlap you’ve bought, or you can choose a complementary colored fabric that will just bleed through the holes a little bit to give it another dimension. Plus, if you want to keep the pillows on your couch year-round you can make the pillow form out of a color that matches the rest of the room and re-make the outer covering depending on the time of the year.
You’ll need · Pillow form fabric cut into 12 1/2” by 20 ½” · Burlap fabric cut into 23” by 15” · Pillow filling
You stitch around the outside of the fabric, leaving an opening for turning and stuffing it. Once stuffed you sew the opening closed. Stitch 1½ inches around three sides of the burlap fabric, insert the pillow form in the open side. Stitch shut. For a frayed look you can just pull threads from the outside edge of the pillow, or if you’re looking for a more sleek pillow turn the burlap pillow form inside out before inserting the stuffed pillow.
If you want to add some lettering or a image, like in the
image shown above, you simply create the banner panel on a third kind of fabric
and then sew it in place on the burlap, making sure it’s on the side of the
fabric you’ve chosen to be the outside.
Another easy thing to do with burlap is use it to cover a bulletin board or as the backing on a photo collage or frame. Obviously, this is really simple to do. Just get a corkboard or piece of cardboard in the size that you want and cover it with the burlap. You can then make a border with buttons or even decorative pushpins. The holes won’t show through the burlap so you can move things around as much as you want. It’s also just as easy to make an earring holder from burlap, if you want to do something just for your bedroom. Simply stretch the burlap over a circle or square frame and secure it in place. Depending on the thickness of the burlap you’ve chosen and how heavy your earrings are, you might want to put 2 layers of burlap up.
If you just want to find something to do with those extra pieces of burlap you have lying around from the above projects, burlap tags are a really cute and simple way to use up those scraps.
Just cut the scraps into the sizes you want, spray then with
fabric stiffener, wait for them to dry, draw or sew whatever you want on to the
scraps and then glue them on to the dowels.These are perfect for a garden, window box, or kitchen
window herb garden.
You can use the same method without the dowels to label picture collages. They look great with autumn themed collages, for example Halloween costume pictures or maybe a Thanksgiving family photo collage. And speaking of Thanksgiving, the garden labels can also easily be used to help label dishes during Thanksgiving or any party. All you need to find is some kind of base for the dowel rod so that it stands up. It might be a good use for the kids old Play doh that needs to be thrown away anyway! I would make sure to also wrap the base in burlap as well and tie it off with a piece of twine or other thin piece of fabric.
FabricStreet.com has some great affordable fabrics, including burlap.
For more project ideas and great deals on Fabric visit, Fabric Street. You can also find them on Facebook.
