French Grain Sack Pillow...and...A Bunny Chef!

Woo hoo!I have finally finished a project that has been cooking in my little brain for a few weeks…this Ballard knock-off French grain sack pillow!

I fell in love when I saw this photo on their web site! Only one problem....it doesn’t seem to exist.  Sooooo….I decided to try to recreate it myself!

Since this was my first attempt at transferring a design on fabric, our CEO Ozzie decided that she needed to have hands-on control of the project…so to speak. lol


First, I blew up the photo of the design as large as I could on my computer. Next, I took it to Staples and had it enlarged to the size I wanted…15” high to fit a 20” pillow. After that, I colored the back with a charcoal art pencil (to make it like carbon paper), taped it to poster board and traced over the design to transfer it to the poster board. I decided not to attempt the letters, and instead cut out an area and added purchased stencil letters. Then it was just a matter of cutting out the design from the poster board with an Exacto knife. Can you say tedious? 


Finally, I taped the stencil to my fabric and filled it in with fabric paint…and voilà! Let’s peel off the stencil and see how it looks. Baby Kitty seems a little nervous.

Hmmm…not perfect, but not bad for a first attempt! It says mills of Provence. I love those roosters! The fabric is actually a remnant from a drop cloth I used to make a slip cover…so it was free.

And here is the completed project once again. I used a down insert that I got at Goodwill on senior day for about $2.00…cheap, since those rascals can cost up to $50 for this size! I figure that I spent a total of about $11 to create the pillow, mostly for supplies from Michaels using 40% coupons. The Ballard version (if it exists!) is $59! The best thing…now I have a stencil that I can reuse to create more pillows for almost nothing!


The down insert wasn’t my only thrifting find. Here’s my favorite…a bunny chef for $4.04. He is very heavy and nice…just needed a clean-up and a little TLC. What do you think he is?


He’s a recipe card holder! Cute, huh? Only one problem…


…this is how most of my recipes look! lol And I like it that way. Sooo…


…I decided to turn him into a chalk board! I just cut a leftover piece of poster board to the right size and sprayed it with chalkboard paint and taaa daaa! And I can switch to a card holder whenever I need to! I added him to the vignette on my kitchen counter with a little message from Julia Child…(said in her voice)…Bon Appétit!

Thanks for stopping by! Please visit these wonderful ladies and their beautiful blogs to see what they are up to and to find a list of this week’s participants!
Mary at Little Red House for Mosaic Monday
Susan at Between Naps on the Porch for Metamorphosis Monday
Rhoda at Southern Hospitality for Today’s Thrifty Treasures
Marty at A Stroll Thru Life for Tabletop Tuesday
Linda at Coastal Charm for Nifty Thrifty Tuesday
Cindy at My Romantic Home for Show and Tell Friday
Donna at Funky Junk Interiors for the Saturday Nite Special
See you next time! A la prochaine!