Botanical Pillows - Two Ways

I'm obsessed with botanical prints and am always looking for ways to use them in my home. Here are a couple of botanical pillows I made by printing out a favorite print and transferring the image onto fabric. I tried two different methods. One using special transfer paper and one with freezer paper.

1. Using Iron on Transfer Paper

Materials
Pillow inserts
Drop cloth material
Iron on transfer paper

Cut the drop cloth fabric to cover the pillow insert. I bought a 14 x 14 inch form and cut my fabric to 16 x 16 inches to make sure I had plenty of  room. Iron out the wrinkles.

Next print the botanical print of your choice on the transfer paper using an inkjet printer. I found mine at The Missouri Botanical Garden here. (Scroll down on the left until you find the word plates. That is where the images start.) There are lots of public domain prints available on the web. Two other sources are thegraphicsfairy.com and vintageprintable.com.

Center your print on the fabric and follow the directions on ironing and removing the backing.

With right sides together (the print is the right side) pin and sew up 3 sides of the pillow case. On the 4th side leave enough space to stuff your pillow. I left about 1/3 to 1/2 of the side open. Cut the corners and trim the sides.

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Turn the case inside out and press. Then stuff the pillow inside and hand sew the opening closed.

2. Transfer Image using Freezer Paper

Materials
freezer paper
glue stick or spray adhesive
fabric

Cut out fabric as stated in method one.

Cut freezer paper to match an 8 1/2 x 11 copy paper. Use a little bit of glue stick or spray adhesive to attach a piece of copy paper to the freezer paper on the dull side.  If the freezer paper curls a lot you may want to flatten it by placing it under some books overnight first.

Print your image on the shiny side of the paper.

Very carefully remove the copy paper and place the print face down on your fabric on a hard surface. Then use the back of a spoon to burnish the print onto the fabric being very careful not to move the paper.

Let the print dry for a little while and finish with sewing and stuffing the pillow as describe in method 1.

Here is the result. Subtle but I like that only the print gets transferred with no background color.