I am big on Christmas - especially decorating! Decorating for Christmas has always been a big event in my house - drawn out over days, eagerly anticipated and scheduled and co-ordinated to maximise the festivity and create that sense of twinkly cosiness that you only get from Christmas lights. Show us a surface and we'll christmas-ify it. So naturally, once the delivery men showed up with my Pink Sofa Of DREAMS, I knew it would only be a matter of time before it too received The Christmas Treatment.
This little navy (navy/grey? gravy?), velvet, H&M number had been languishing around my house for a few years - it's tassels had all disintegrated and it was looking a little sad, so I nominated it for a Christmas makeover. This year I am all about Gold stars, and that deep murky navy/grey velvet was crying out for a sprinkling of stars, just like a starry sky. Whilst I'm keeping mine all to myself, I think this would also make a cute and affordable DIY christmas gift, or just a way to update an old cushion cover for the winter months. (I also think this would work wonders on pale pink velvet, or a creamy cotton)
You Will Need:
- a cushion cover (similar here)
- iron-on stars
- mini tassels in "Champagne"
- matching thread, and a needle
- scissors
- superglue
- tweezers that you aren't afraid to get dirty!
1. Lay out your stars on the cushion cover. I went for a 'scattering' rather than a neat arrangement, to give it a more "nights sky", "constellation" feel, rather than a "repeat pattern" feel.
2. Carefully glue the back of each star, one at a time, with the superglue, holding it by the corner with the tweezers. Then, affix it gently to the cushion cover and press down carefully. If you overload on glue, you can end up sticking both sides off the cushion cover together, so be sure to be sparing. Repeat for each star on both sides.
Note: if you're able to make the iron-ons adhere traditionally (by, ahem, ironing them on...) you can skip this step and just follow the iron-on instructions that come with the stars. However, velvet is not the easiest surface to adhere to, so glue it was for me!
3. Cut down the loops on your tassels. I used a dot of the glue to stop them fraying.
4. Carefully sew each tassel to a corner of the cushion. You could undo the seams of the cushion and sew your tassels into the seam if you wanted a very secure tassel, but I opted to just pull a little extra fabric around the end of my tassel with very tight stitches.
5. Pop a cushion inside your cover and admire your new festive sofa-candy. ;)
I was so excited to pop this cushion on my sofa that I did so immediately and I absolutely love the grey/pink/navy colour combo. Now to find some other surfaces to stick stars to...
