Update to the Chaises

I have a new go to thing to do on Monday nights.  Go to Ikea.  I went tonight on a whim after a trip to Michael’s to pick up supplies to make bows for my daughter’s softball team.  It was so quiet.  There were no rogue shopping carts careening through the aisles.  I didn’t get shoved once.  It was awesome.  I’ve been wanting to add some color to the chaise lounges we bought not long ago, so I grabbed a couple of throws and some pillow covers.  Here’s a boring before and followed by a poppy after:

boring chaise

The chaises want to look super fresh, but it’s like they forgot to put  make-up on before work. They need a little oomph.  Here’s what I came up with:

cozier chaise

Don’t you want to curl up right there with a book or watch TV?  Want to know the best part?  That little makeover cost less than $8.  (Plus $8 for the other chaise.  $8 per chaise makeover).  I got a plain white-ish Gurli pillow cover,  from Ikea for $4.00 and the red Polarvide fleece throw for $3.99.  Crazy right?  But wait, that’s not a plain pillow cover in the picture, is it?  I’ve been dying to try  stenciling fabric and I thought that there was no better place to start than with a $4 pillow cover.  Now, I’ve already told your this was an impromptu visit to Ikea earlier tonight.  So, I had to sort of make do with the materials I happened to have at the house.  What I had at the house included some fabric markers, a Crayola airbrush thing my kids got for Christmas and the stencils that came up with it.  My first plan was to use the airbrush thingie in some super creative way, but I could not for the life of me figure out how to use the thing.  I was able to figure out the stencils that came with it though.  Shocking, I know.  Here’s the stencil I chose:

stencil

It’s sort of just a little four sided star.  I like that it nods at patriotism, but doesn’t scream American flag.  I would love to tell you that after I picked the stencil that I grabbed a ruler and carefully measured where each star would go, but I didn’t.  I sort of eyeballed it and just used the stencil itself as a guide.  I would line up the end of the stencil with the tip of the star and that’s how I spaced horizontally.  Then I did a similar non-technique to measure off vertically.  No, sorry, I have no better explanation than that.  Just remember, it’s only $4.  And I wish I was kidding, but the red stripe came in to play because I got tired of stenciling the blue stars half way through.  No joke.  I may go back and touch up the red a bit.  But I kind of like faded out imperfection of it.  We’ll see.  Here’s a close up of the pillow:

stenciled pillow

Perfectly imperfect, I say!  Ok, the red line might need a little help.  But I kind of like it and I don’t think I’ll ever buy another pillow cover over $4 again!

As an aside, Ikea has some really cool new stuff.  I may need to do a post on it.  Here’s a sneak peak of a GORGEOUS pillow cover that caught my eye:

IKEA PS 2014 Cushion cover IKEA Cover is made of ramie; a hard-wearing and absorbent natural material. The zipper makes the cover easy to remove.

Maybe I was wrong about never buying a pillow cover for more than $4.  This one is $15.

pillow text

“Upcycled
The DIY'ersCarrieThisHome.com

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