Valentines Pillows

How better to show your love than a nice big fluffy pillow?I wanted to make great iron-on transfer pillows, but didn't want to pay the big bucks for one of those automatic cutter thingamajiggys that cuts your designs out for you.  So here's how I figured out how to make custom decals from the same material, without the machine! MATERIALS- Cotton or linen pillow cover- Iron on material(This is made for the expensive automatic cutters like Cricut and Silhouette, they usually have their own section in the craft store and come in rolls.)- Iron- Scissors- Spray glue- Printer and paper STEPS Create your design.  If you're using words, create them in your word processing software and print them out.  For other shapes, like hearts, just cut them free form out of printer paper. Trim your letters of extra paper.  As everyone knows, I'm (how does my mother put it...) budget conscious, so I kept playing with my design until I found the most economical way to place my letters and hearts on the iron-on material. I used red, pink, and a great sparkly silver, so a lot of my design time was in figuring out which colors to use for what and how to fit them all on the material.  Once you've got all of that figured out, dust the backs of your paper cut outs with spray glue and affix them onto the right side (shiny side) of the iron-on material. Using scissors, just cut your shapes out cutting through the paper and iron-on material.  For the insides of letters like B, I used a utility knife if they were too small to get my scissors into.  Once they are all cut out, spread out your pillow case and arrange your letters. Now, iron your cut outs down. The directions on the iron-on material say use an ironing cloth.  I started this way but found it was taking a long time.  Since the paper that I glued to the material was already acting as a buffer, I ended up ironing directly onto the letters and that was much more expedient.  Once ironed down, peel off the top clear coat of protective plastic that makes the top layer of the iron-on and you're good to go. If you want to layer colors, just build them from the bottom up.  For my Tru Luv pillow, first I ironed on the pink heart.  I then removed the clear plastic layer and arranged my next layer of letters.  Since the iron would be touching the pink heart when ironing the letters, I did use a protective piece of cloth before ironing the top layer, otherwise the non-protected pieces get scorched. That's it!  Have fun and spread the love!