In August when I made the home pillows, I mentioned some college ones that Hunter loved, but I didn’t want on our bed.  Since football season was here, and I promised to make Amanda something a long time ago, I thought it was finally time for the college pillows.

Hand Painted College Pillows

What you’ll need:

• 18″ x 18″ pillow case
• Paint (fabric or acrylic)
• Paint brush
• Pencil
• 18″ x 18″ pillow insert

The same way you start the other pillows, get a picture of the state you’re going to use and have it handy.  Draw the outline of the state on the pillow case.  Then sketch out the words / images for the rest of your design.  This meant ‘Clemson’ and a paw print.

Note: I learned that the Clemson paw print has some characteristics that normal paw prints don’t have.  It should be pointed to 1 o’clock, and have an indentation at the bottom. Thanks for the lesson, Hunter & Kirstin!

Honestly, I think the hardest thing is getting the words to look great: script-y, yet readable, and still easy to paint.

Next, paint over your pencil marks. I used white outlines for the state and text, and then orange for the paw print. I’m not thrilled about how the L turned out, but not a bad first try.  After the paint dries, put a pillow insert in.

After finishing the Clemson pillow and snapping a picture, I shipped the cover to Amanda in Napa!   She sent me a pretty sweet picture with the pillow during the Clemson / ND game — I’d like to think it brought the tigers luck 😉

Interested in a custom college pillow? Reach out to me on Etsy and I’d be happy to make one for you!

Full transparency: I had all intentions of making Clemson and Georgia Tech versions of these pillows to put on our couch for the fall — I had the covers, and just had to sketch and paint them.  Then the corn hole boards took way longer than I thought they would (how are they still in progress?!?!), I’m trying to refinish my old desk, update the guest room, and work on the office… Needless to say, the college pillows for us took a back seat to all my other projects, and likely won’t get done this year.  So my drafted post about making one for Panda and some for us, is now just a post on her pillow!  Life, eh?