My front porch space has received basically all my love and attention since the weather’s warmed up. It’s essentially my new living room and I have loved sitting here to read, pray, and watch kids play. I’ve been wanting to cozy it up and when I realized that Cricut made pillow covers, I knew I wanted to create some custom pillows for this space.
First, let’s talk about what the patio looked like before:
Pretty blah. The 14’ pew bench came with the house when we bought it (score!), and the metal “A” sign is one we’ve had- Shawn hung it up for me not long ago. But there was a LOT I wanted to do to this space.
First, I tackled the door. It was brown and beat up. We’d already replaced the decorative frosted glass with more modern rain glass, but I wanted to add a pop of color and change out the handle. So that’s what we did! I painted it the same color as our kitchen island- Relentless Olive from Sherwin Williams- and we switched out the gold curved handle for a more modern black one.
My favorite hint for painting any type of wood (or even faux wood)- use deglosser! Saves you hours of sanding and allows the new paint to adhere perfectly!
Once the door was done, I set my sights on the church pew. It was in ok condition- but was cracking in some spots and I suspect someone tried to stain it at some point and didn’t do a great job- it was super uneven. The easiest thing would have been to paint it, but I wanted to keep it a wood tone, so I started sanding.
You can see how the pew really needed some love here. I wanted to lighten it up so it didn’t blend in with the brick as much, so that is the reason I decided to sand!
It took me a couple of days to sand all 14 feet of it, but it was worth it. Once sanded, I wiped straight-up cheap bleach on it to lighten the overall color. I ended up doing this about 3 times and it worked beautifully. My Vintage Porch has a great tutorial on this that was very helpful.
Once everything was sanded, I used some wood filler to repair some of the cracks in the wood. This is my favorite kind to use because the color changes letting you know it is dry.
After bleaching, I coated it with Watco Satin Wax to give it a little protection. I wanted to keep the light look but also protect the wood I had just worked so hard to uncover. This did the trick! Once it went on, it did darken the wood a bit, and I panicked, but then it lightened again as it dried.
Now for the fun decorative stuff! I made the pillows using my Cricut Explore Air2 and Cricut Easy Press. Their heat press products and tools are so much fun. I ordered basically everything from Cricut and here is a list of the products I used:
Cricut Easy Press + Easy Press Mat
Cricut Everyday Iron-On (I used beige, avocado, black and mustard for these pillows)
I drew all the doodles and shapes on my iPad, then uploaded them to Cricut Design Space. From there, I made 4 different compositions for 4 pillows, and cut them on the 4 different colors. A few of my design elements were too large to be cut on my 12x12 mat, so I had to slice them and cut them in sections, then put them back together when it was time to heat press them.
I’ve uploaded my design file to the Cricut Design Space Here, and you can use it for free!
Organic Shapes Collage Pillows
FREE Cricut Design Space filed linked here!
Then, it was collage time!
All my shapes are weeded and it’s time to start collaging them onto the pillow covers using my Easy Press!
The Easy Press makes it really simple to adhere the Iron-On to the fabric. You just set your temperature and time, push the “C” button, and it times it all for you.
I adhered the bottom layer first and then added additional layers, being sure to keep all Iron-On Material covered with the transfer film (even if it was already adhered) under the Easy Press (or else it would melt!).
I was really pleased with how these turned out and love the quality of the Cricut Pillow Covers. They are perfect for my patio space.
Lastly, I found a cute little metal coffee table (it was already pink, and I was great with that!) on Facebook Marketplace and pulled out a few pillows and a Mexican blanket I already had.
I had purchased this floor runner for our kitchen and ended up not liking it, but it worked perfectly folded hot-dog style on our bench as a pseudo-cushion! Here’s the final reveal:
I’m so thankful for this space. I never set out to have a matching set of anything- but I do my best to buy and create things that I love- which, it turns out, kind of all go together.
It’s been a collection of little projects that make a big impact on my attitude- I love sitting here and just enjoying every little thing- and I have big intentions for the conversations, wine nights, and prayer times to be had here.