Moustache Pillow in Progress

Good morning!

I thought long and hard about posting about an unfinished project. Personally, I don't have the patience for waiting to see the finished product on other people's blog. Since I'm going to have a busy few weeks coming up and I don't know when I'm going to have the time to finish this project I decided, obviously, to post about my Moustache Pillow (18in x 18in)  in progress. 

Its hard to find DIY projects that are directed towards guys. How often do you find a throw pillow you can make that you can gift to your boyfriend, husband, or son? Well, its rare. I wanted to find something that is masculine and could be equally enjoyed by both parties: enter the 'Moustache craze'. 

The moustache seems to have become one of the popular staples for parties, silly gifts, and a go to manly symbol. I decided that given the fairly simple outline, it could be easy to duplicate onto something. I have been wanting to try a spray-painted pillow so this seemed like the perfect opportunity.

To start off, the materials I used/needed for this project are as follows:

Exacto knife

marker

printer and paper

some type of plastic paper or sheet, NOTE: I used a sheet of laminating paper because it was easily accessible, but any plastic sheet should work as long as you can cut it with an exacto knife.

spray paint

well ventilated space

newspaper

tape

fabric (amount depends on size of pillow you intend to make) NOTE: I was able to get ahold of some curtain drapes that were going to be thrown away, which I quickly snatched for free. If you have the option to reuse any type of fabric, I would say go for it. The fabric may not be what you would have ideally chose but it can make for a more interesting pillow- with a better purpose too!

Okay, to start off I found a clipart image of a mustache that I liked off google images. I then made it the appropriate size and printed it off onto a piece of scrap paper I had. 

Please note, I did this for sunglasses and an elephant too (I thought sunglasses on a pillow would be sweet. I don't even have to explain the elephant.) 

I then cut the image out with scissors- I happened to take photos of me cutting the sunglasses outline and not the moustache so for visual purposes there will be sunglasses in the next few pics. You can do this for any simple image really, so the instructions can be applied to any outline you'd like to try.

Next, I cut out the image and laid it on top of my plastic laminate paper.

I then traced the outline onto the paper with a marker. 

This next part was the trickiest: tracing around the sunglasses with an exacto knife. This would be super easy with an image that lacks curves- it takes a bit more skill to trace around circles because the knife wants to go in a straight line. I would suggest practicing on an extra sheet of whatever plastic you are using to see how easy it is to move the exacto knife through it. 

Anyways, when I was done this is what I had: 

You are not going to be using the inside part (bottom portion of photo) so you can discard this if you wish. 

Next, I laid my fabric square out and placed my outline sheet on top of it in the position I wanted. I taped the edges down to the fabric with painters tape and then used newspaper to cover the exposed fabric that I didn't want painted. Using spray paint, I sprayed over the exposed "sunglasses" portion of the fabric. I let it dry overnight and then this is what I had: 

Now, as you can see the spray paint got a bit outside of the outline near the top of the moustache. To prevent this from happening make sure that your plastic sheet is pressed firmly to the fabric without any gaps and spray paint directly DOWN onto the fabric. If you spray paint at an angle the paint will get underneath the plastic (which results you can see in my slightly blurred moustache print). 

Anyways, this is as far as I have gotten. I can say that if you are wanting to try spray painting fabric, go for it. It was much easier than I anticipated and looked better on the fabric than I thought it would. You could do this with any simple outline or stencil you want. Eventually it would be cool to do this on plain sheets to transform them into curtains. The possibilities for how you can use this technique are endless. 

I hope to finish up this project in the future, when I have a bit more free time, and can't wait to share the results. 

Tempted to try this? If you do, comment below or email me to be featured on the blog! Better techniques or suggestions? Share those below!!