Craft Challenge - A Dog-Lover's Upcycling Dream

I always really look forward to receiving Anja and PJs craft projects pinging in my inbox the day before we share them with you. They never cease to inspire me and they give me lots of ideas for my own wedding crafts. Today I am sharing with you another one of Anja's stylish ideas. When this girl says she 'knocked' something up quickly - I just know it is going to be super cute. She can't help it. I'll let you see what I mean for yourself.

For the October Craft challenge I decided to upcycle something that I already had lying around: a boring white pillowcase.

You see, back in the days I thought that an all white home would be a good idea. White couch, white pillows, cream coloured carpet... I have since realized that having a dog and a life prevents you from fully appreciating white. Anyhow, back to the pillowcase. That's what it looks like now:

The October challenge had been looming over my head for quite a while, and all the things that I had wanted to do didn't pan out for one reason or the other. So when I was sorting my ribbons, I found this beautiful navy colored velvet ribbon. I just had to make something with it!

So, I took apart a simple white pillowcase that I had in my closet by removing the side seams. If you don't have one, here's a quick how to make your own pillowcase (you have to sew along the pink lines):

After disassembling the pillowcase, I added the velvet ribbon stripes. Just measure from the crease where the top and the bottom of the pillow were (...if you're clever. If you're stupid like me, you iron the fabric after disassembling it and then have to measure in a very complicated way). The distance on my pillowcase is about 1 1/2 inch.

Then I sewed the sides back together.

For the dog silhouette, I used a picture of a greyhound because my precious Coca is mostly greyhound (the other 5% are dirt). Adapt the picture so that it fits between the velvet ribbons, but is not too small. Put an old magazine inside the pillowcase and place the picture on it. Move it to where you want to have it - mine is smack dab in the middle.

I had bought fabric markers a while ago and wanted to use the navy one. I tried it out on a strip of fabric - it looked a bit light, but I decided to give it a try.

Too light, right? So I took the black fabric marker and just drew along the lines again. That was better.

Project finished!
Someone who's more dedicated to their blog would have place the dog and the pillow on the couch together, but as Coca isn't allowed on the furniture, this is all you get:

Okay, okay. One more. (She tried really hard to recreate the picture in the dining room, but that wasn't all easy...)

See what I mean? Even her dog is perfect (I might be biased there...just a bit!). My version would have a wombat on? What would you sew on your pillow? Or more to the point -what have you been upcycling this month? Our monthly link-up and vote will be online from next Monday. We very much hope to see you there.