Stars and Stripes Pillows

The Stars and Stripes pillows that I made this week on Home & Family are an easy and fun way to add some festive pizzaz to inexpensive pillows (my pillow covers were $4.00 a piece!) or a way to give new life to old pillows you already have.  All you need is the pillow covers, some masking tape, and spray paint. Lay your pillow case out flat.  If yours are a lighter weight fabric, you may want to insert a piece of cardboard the size of the pillow inside the case to keep it tight and to keep the paint from seeping through to the other side.  Mine were heavy cotton twill, so I could just lay them flat.Tape off your stripes using masking tape in the desired thickness.  A quick tip here is to lay a ruler down on the pillow and run the tape beside it, move the ruler up and lay the second piece on the other side of the ruler and repeat - you'll get perfect spacing and not have to measure anything!  For the fully stripped pillow, run the tape all the way up.  For the combo pillow, stop about two thirds up the pillow. Be sure to press down all of your tape edges firmly to prevent the paint from seeping underneath. Using a piece of cardboard as a screen, spray paint your stripes red.  I used regular spray paint, but if you want to be able to launder these you can also brush on fabric paint. For the combo pillow, lay down three stars in the non-painted area.  You can cut your stars out of cardboard and just lay them down or find adhesive stars in the size you want.  Mask the red area with your cardboard sheet and spray paint blue over the star area, if your stars aren't adhesive, just make sure you spray directly down to keep the spray from moving the stars. For the star pillow, layout a star on your pillow using the masking tape.  Don't over think your star shape, I just ran the tape from the top center to the bottom corners and then repeated for the sides.  I ended up with a slightly funky star, but I think that adds to the design.  Using a utility knife carefully cut the tape from the interior of the star.  Using more tape, mask the rest of the pillow.  Be sure to press all of this tape down firmly so you won't get any paint seeping in.  Spray the star blue. Once the paint is dry, carefully pull off all of your tape. Enjoy!