Reversible Headboard Slipcover

We made a padded headboard awhile ago with an old sheet, using a tutorial much like this one. We would just swap out different quilts and coverlets, by pinning it using safety pins.  But as part of our bedroom makeover, I wanted a more permanent solution. So I rummaged in my fabric stash for some cool fabric. I found a cool (I know it's trendy) grey chevron and a piece of my daughter's dorm room curtain.  I thought I could create a reversible headboard slipcover using both pieces. It was really easy. I thought I could just slip this cover over, but I had to add in a zipper to make the slipcover fit nice and tight.

Before

After

After - reversed

1. Gather your supplies: two large pieces of fabric, and one piece of contrasting fabric (I used yellow), scissors, pins, measuring tape, sewing machine, 16" or longer zipper, and thread.

2. Measure the length and width of your headboard, and add one inch to the width and length. For example, if your headboard is 80 length x 36 width, you would have 81 x 37.  Using these dimensions, cut from each piece of large fabric. If you want, you can finish the bottom of each piece, but I didn't because it doesn't show.

Get off of there!

3. Measure the depth of your headboard, and add one inch.  For example, my headboard was approximately 3 inches deep, so I need strips that were four inches wide. So cut strips from your contrasting fabric 4 inches wide, sew the strips together so you have one long strip that is at least as long as two widths and one length of your headboard.

Contrasting yellow

4. To sew the strip to one of side of your headboard fabric, pin rights sides together, starting at the bottom of one edge of the width, along one side of the length, and then back down to the other width. I don't like to use pins, so I didn't, I just lined up the fabric and sewed, contrasting fabric on the top. When you get to the corner, make sure your sewing machine needle is down at the corner, turn the fabric to 90 degrees, where you would start along the length, clip the contrasting fabric from the raw edge towards the needle. Bunch up all the contrasting fabric on the left, but make sure the raw edge is almost lined up with the headboard fabric, then sew, trying not to pleat the contrasting fabric. Keep sewing all the way around.

5. Now attach the other large piece, and place where the zipper will go (the bottom of one side of the headboard fabric). Now sew the contrasting fabric to the other side of the headboard, but don't go all the way down to the last part. Just to the zipper.  Now sew in your zipper. (I am not great at it, so just look up a tutorial that will work for you). As you can see from my pictures, I had to unpick and resew in the zipper.

Zipper when chevron side is forward.

Zipper when teal side is forward.

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Painted Dish Towels

Like usual,  I want a custom look at a cheap price and painting fabric is a good solution.

Tools & supplies:
sack cloth dish towels (I got mine at Target)
acrylic paint (I like Martha Stewarts)
fabric painting medium (comes in a bottle, like the paint)
tape (masking or painting)
paper plate
stencil
round sponge brush
iron
Pandora station: Amos Lee

1 - I made my stencil using a coated piece of cardboard, like a cereal box. It worked fine for the first color, but it was starting to get a little mushy, so then I taped it w/ painter's tape and made sure the paint dried on in between each color.

2 - Wash and iron the sack cloths.  Then tape one down onto some layers of newspaper.  Taping the cloths down keeps them from shifting.

3 - Place your stencil on the cloth, where you want it.  I used the bottom of the stencil and lined it up with the bottom of the cloth.

4 - Squirt some paint onto a paper plate, I mixed a couple of colors together to get the different colors I wanted.  Then squirt in the fabric medium, see the instructions on the container to see the ratio. It doesn't need to be exact.

5 - Using the round stencil sponge brush, hold the stencil with one hand, and then paint with the other.  Don't get the brush too full of paint.

6 - Move the stencil if you need to and paint again.

7 - Carefully remove the tape from the cloth and hang the cloth to dry, the instructions say to dry for up to two days, but in this Arizona heat, I dried them for about four hours outside on a clothesline.

8 - Follow the instructions on the fabric medium to see how long to heat set the paint with an iron, as well as to wash them again.

That's it!

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