A Year Round Gift

I found this gift idea on the Silhouette blog.  It was designed and created by Leslie of My 100 Year Old Home.  The original post appeared here.  The project is called "A Gift For All Seasons" and includes a down pillow and six pillow covers that can be changed each season throughout the year.  Below is a photo of the pillow covers appearing in that post.

Image appearing on Silhouette Blog - Leslie of My 100 Year Old Home

Of course I had to add my own twist!  Here's how I did it.

Materials

• Pillow Covers 20" Square (5 white, 1 pink) - these are cotton GURLI IKEA
• Duck Feather Pillow Insert (1) -  FJADRAR IKEA *
• Silhouette Heat Transfer (1 each of black, red, and silver)
• Burlap Jute Bag with Handles 

* The pillow covers and the pillow insert can also be purchased at IKEA

For those of you not familiar with a Silhouette CAMEO, it is an electronic cutting machine. Like a home printer, it connects to a computer but Instead of printing, it uses a small blade to cut a variety of materials.  There are literally tens of thousands of designs available to cut; many of them free to download from various internet sites.  I chose six seasonal designs for my pillow covers.  

I'll demonstrate my process with the Christmas pillow; after all, tis the season.  After choosing my design and opening it in the accompanying Silhouette software, I resized the design to fit my pillow cover.  

Next, I flipped the design since the machine will be cutting it backwards, but the wording will be correctly turned when ironed onto the pillow cover.

With the heat transfer vinyl loaded into the Silhouette CAMEO, I click 'Cut' and the machine does the work!

Once cut, it's easy to weed off the excess heat transfer material around the design.

The heat transfer vinyl has a clear carrier sheet that keeps the design together to place it on the pillow cover.

The design adheres to the fabric when activated by heat using an iron (my iron could be considered an antique - it's over 35 years old - don't laugh, it works great). Then peel off the carrier sheet and voila . . .

Now the fun part, embellishing each of the pillows with stuff from my stash!  Here three small green jingle bells for the holly berries and a large jingle bell tied on with red silk ribbon for a zipper pull.

Winter is a silver snowflake with a fancy faux pearl button in the center.

Spring is a cute silver bunny on a pale pink pillow with a fluffy pink pompom tail.

Summer is a bold tropical leaf highlighted by bright green inking and a matching tropical leaf zipper pull.

Halloween is a funny faced jack-o-lantern with glowing yellow eyes.

Fall's 'Thankful' is trimmed with a stylized sheaf of wheat and a trio of fall leaves for a zipper pull.

And to house the pillow and the seasonal covers, a burlap bag decorated with bright red Nordic snowflakes.

Under the tree for someone special . . . can't say yet . . . it isn't Christmas!