My Shabby Bedroom Series (Playful Pillows) - Painted Pillow Tutorial

Hello! Happy Tuesday Morning! Do you ever feel like your bedroom is the LAST place on your home's "to do" list? You get to all the rooms that people might see or the places that actually need your attention for sanitation purposes and your poor bedroom gets set on the back seat for a day when you're caught up on everything else. Well, I have learned that those days never come and to have a refreshing place to retire at the end of the day is important. So carve out some time this week to do something to refresh your bedroom (I'll be attempting to get that massive pile of clean clothes put away) and be prepared for a big payoff. Life and our brains function better when we have a beautiful retreat to go to as needed.
I thought I'd show everyone out there in blog land some of the decorating I did to my bedroom to make it fresh and calming. I'm very frugal when it comes to decorating so I did many things by hand. It's not perfect, but I take pride in the fact that I created it myself. I hope you like it too and that you'll feel inspired to get creative in your bedroom decor. I'll post a detail every couple days so come back often. At the end of this series, visit back for a photo of the whole room all together!

First detail: Playful Pillows (With a DIY Tutorial)

When I was planning this room refresh, I visited the Anthropologie website to get ideas (and to remind myself how insanely expensive stuff is there). I saw a cute pillow with a bird on it while I was browsing. It really wasn't anything like these pillows, but it got my own creative juices flowing and I realized that I wanted some feathered friends in my bedroom.
For the bird pillows I shopped my house. I had some pillows that I wasn't using. Plain. Cream. Boring. Pillows. But never fear, I also had paint! Yes, just regular ol' water-based paint. You could use craft paint. I used a paint that I had purchased in the "ooops" section at the hardware store. Here is what I did in 4 steps:

1. I found some bird shapes that I liked online and printed and cut them out in an appropriate size.
2. Then I used a pencil and very lightly traced around the shape directly onto my pillows.
3. After that I started painting! Using a small brush, I filled in the bird shape with my paint and let it dry.
4.  I thought it still needed something else, so I took some beautiful lace details that I had purchased at a discount fabric store on a whim (they were seriously about 10 cents a piece) and hand sewed them to the pillow with matching thread. I thought it added some dimension and boundaries that had been lacking.

The tufted pillow is something that I had found years ago on a super clearance. It was love at first sight and I have held on to it all these years hoping it would someday find a place in my home. It finally has and I have to say I still love it! So, you can see that having a little fun with plain pillows can help you have a custom one-of-a-kind look in your bedroom without being spendy. What kind of pillow will you make?

<3 Crystal