Moroccan Pillow Decor With Stencils and Beads

by Royal Design Studio

What kind of luxury do you crave in your home? Some people install soaking tubs or showers with jets as luxurious escapes. My little luxury is an exotic Moroccan-Indian nook I created last year with Royal Design Studio stencils. The DIY tutorials for the nook and a big silk cushion were shared here at Paint and Pattern. This year I decided to add more pillows, because the inspiration photos for that project were nooks loaded with pillows:

moroccan pillow decor with stencils and beads, crafts, how to, reupholster

My closet nook is designed to feel luxurious and opulent. So I got the idea to add metallic shimmer and iridescence with Royal Stencil Cremes, glass seed beads, and silk!

Stencils and Supplies by www.royaldesignstudio.com

Supplies to make this project:

Atlas Allover Moroccan Wall Stencil from Royal Design Studio

Royal Stencil Creme in Metallic Teal

Stencil Brushes

Fabrics - I used a teal shawl for the stenciling, and a printed teal color silk as an accent

Large bolster pillow insert from Pottery Barn

Two Moroccan tassels

Teal color glass seed beads from TOHO

Thread, needle, scissors, cording or elastic

Sewing machine

Paper towels, Painters Tape

Stenciling was the fastest part of this project! I simply stenciled the Atlas Allover Moroccan Wall Stencil on a teal color fabric. Because many patterns on pillows and the cushion in my nook are floral or swirly, I chose this geometric stencil for pattern contrast.

The fabric was actually a shawl I owned but didn't wear. Why not repurpose it? The shawl was a darker teal, so I used a lighter teal color: Metallic Teal Royal Stencil Creme. When stenciling, you can swirl the brush or you can pounce it. I found the fabric pulled through the stencil when I swirled the brush, and pouncing kept the fabric and stencil still. So that's a good tip to remember if you run into that problem while stenciling on fabric. Once I pounced with the brush, there were no problems.

As an accent, I wanted to add beads around the stencil, inspired by a beaded pillow once available from Taigan where I got the beads from. The technique is called a "beaded back stitch." If, like me, you are clueless as how to do that, here's a great beaded backstitch video tutorial!

I outlined just some of the stencil shapes with beads for a bit of shimmer. I will be honest, it takes some timeto do the beading. It might be a good activity for Netflix binging! I can always add more beads in the future, like whenever the next season of House of Cards is released. One option is to do what I did - don't bead a whole entire pillow, just add beads to a panel on part of the pillow.

If you make a round bolster pillow like this, the sewing can be really easy and fast. You are simply making a tube shape to slip around the pillow. The fabric I stenciled wasn't wide enough to cover the entire pillow, so I added rectangles of a silk fabric on the sides to make the fabric wide enough to cover the pillow. You don't even have to insert a zipper into this pillow, although I did. You can just sew a seam along the long edges of the pillow cover, resulting in a tube shape. I recommend sewing the pillow cover just a bit smaller than the pillow, so you are really squeezing the pillow in. This gives the pillow a firm fit and makes it look more professional than if the cover is too loose. You might have to wrestle with it to get the pillow in there, but that's okay because once it's in there you don't have to take it out again.

To easily and quickly close up the ends I laid a cord along the edges and folded the fabric over it. I stitched the fabric so the cording was inside. Be sure to not sew on the cording because you don't want the cord attached to the fabric! You're going to pull on the cord so it needs to stay loose. Use the edge of the foot to keep the cord away from the needle, to guarantee you don't sew over the cord.

Once the pillow cover was on the pillow, I then pulled the cords to close the ends. Then, I slipped the cords through the cords of the Moroccan tassels, and knotted the cords to hold the tassels in place. Then I pushed all the cords through the small hole and into the bottom of the pillow, which took all of 5 minutes. Yeah!

I was thrilled to have found the big dramatic teal tassels during one of Melanie Royals' Paint and Play trips to Morocco. They were from a shop deep in the Marrakech medina, so they're perfect for a Moroccan-Indian nook. And now I've added even more teal on teal on teal color to my Moroccan nook, luxurious details like silk, tassels, jewels and beads.

What do you think? Will you try and recreate this look in your home? Royal Design Studio has a lovely Moroccan Stencils Collection featuring worldly patterns and even some beautifully geometric stencils. If you want to add a touch of the exotic to your home, this is the place to go!

Stencils and Supplies by www.royaldesignstudio.com

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2 comments

Unique Creations By Anita on Oct 14, 2016
Wow, what a beautiful job you did. Really love it

1 Reply
- Royal Design Studio on Oct 18, 2016
  Thanks a lot Anita!!
  
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