How to stencil a burlap pillow

Mr. Biddlebits and I were married on June 4, 2011 - we had lovely homemade burlap table runners for our indoor/outdoor reception, so after our Wedding,we had some a boat-load of leftover burlap material that screamed for a DIY project.

Initially, I wrapped some of the burlap around an existing pillow and hot glued the back to keep everything tidy. That was an extreme FAIL - it looked AWFUL from the back...the absolutely antithesis of "tidy"! But, I created a stencil of our wedding date, using microsoft word and our home printer, found a font that I liked, and resized it (in MS Word) until it was the size I wanted. Then, I cut out the "middle" of the numbers, leaving me with a stencil. (albeit it, a rough stencil - but it worked!) I centered, then taped the paper stencil to the pillow, then used a sharpie marker to fill in the date.

The pillow looked awesome...from a distance...until you picked it up and turned it over. However, I kept it tucked carefully on our rarely-used living room couch until this last weekend.

...when I decided it was TIME to do right by this poor DIY project!

Step #1: I created a new burlap pillow cover (leave me a comment if you'd like instructions on how to do that)

Step #2: ...stuffed the (de-burlaped/hot glued) pillow inside

Step #3: ...and created a new stencil using our Silhouette cutter and vinyl-sticker. For those of you with a silhouette, or similar cutter, I set my font size to 600, and I believe I used the Times New Roman font. If you don't have a silhouette, you can use the Microsoft word version I mentioned above. It works JUST as well!

Step #4: I centered, then stuck the vinyl stencil to the burlap, grabbed my sharpie pen, and colored in the numbers.

The final project is something I'm proud of! It's a simple pillow, but personalized for the Hubs and me - reminding us of one of the best days of our lives...6.4.2011!

Care to share other pillow/stencil ideas?