Basic white sheets are probably the best investment we've ever made. Change a pillow case or throw a different colored blanket along the bottom of the bed and voila, a whole new look for the bedroom. Another great way to augment plain white sheets is to stamp a pattern onto them using anything from a potato to piece of linoleum to a stamp you might already own. Using non toxic fabric paint, stamp a simple pattern along a border or go whole hog. Jump below for inspiration and a how-to from Todd Oldham.
How To: Stamp Your Own Sheets
A tutorial with Todd Oldham and Susan Sarandon on how to use plastic cups and fabric paint to create a modern circle pattern on your sheets. You can also check out the how to instructions in the book Todd came out with a while ago called Handmade Modern which is filled with great MCM inspired DIY ideas.
Make it Mine Magazine shows us how to make a potato stamp using a cookie cutter (for those of us less confident with our freehand abilities).
For regular potato stamping instructions, check out poopscape's tutorial on how to make the lemon slice pattern above. Or if you're not into making your own stamps, there are plenty of etsy crafters who can make them for you. Check out Bossom Stamps to start.
Readymade's potato stamp dress is a great jumping off point for a simple one color pattern.
Want more? Lotta Jansdotter's How To Print on Anything and Lena Corwin's Printing By Hand will go more in depth and give you lots of ideas. Lena also has more inspiration on her fantastic blog and some fabric paint recommendations right here.
Images: Design Sponge, Simply Stated, Lotta Jansdotter, Poopscape.
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don't forget what you can do with a good stencil or some rit dye! i'm sometimes disappointed by the (lack of) variety and cost of commercially available stencils. they're super easy to make with a good old flexible cutting board from the dollar store and an x-acto knife. and don't get me started about rit dye! *swoon* that stuff is the bees knees! i've used it to transform old sofa slipcovers (going from a dreadful pea green to a very lovely chocolate brown) or resuscitate faded slipcovers (i got an IKEA lunna chair for a steal at $20 just because the deep red cover was super faded, which was easily fixed by my washing machine and a $2 box of red rit dye).
view littlebunnyfoofoo's profile
I just used some gorgeous hand-blocked fabric from Galbraith and Paul for a headboard...sure would be a lot less expensive if I could master this technique! It's worth a shot.
view Annie, bossy color's profile
good call bunny, thanks for the reminder, stencils are amazing!
view laure's profile
one of the simplest ways to stencil fabric...freezer paper! cut out the desired shapes, and place shiny side down on the fabric. use a DRY iron to adhere, and spray lightly with spray paint...or apply liquitex printing ink (acrylic) with a sponge brayer or mini-paint roller.
after ink/paint dries, the freezer paper pulls off easily, and there's no residue. set the image (if you've used acrylic) with a dry iron (place foil between printed fabric and iron, just in case).
view maude's profile
maude...that's a great suggestion! i'll have to try that! also, painter's tape and/or contact paper works wonders if you're thinking of painting a plain sisal rug...
and i forgot how much fun potato stamps were...i'll have to revisit them this weekend!
thanks for this awesome post!
view littlebunnyfoofoo's profile
Dye! Why didn't I think of that sooner? Thanks bunny.
One of these days I'm going to go crazy stamping something. Love that linen runner... maybe it'll be something like that.
view whytephoenix's profile