14 Hand Painted Duvet Cover

I built a new bed, and painted it bright white. My old duvet cover was ivory. I belong to the "don't mix white and ivory" club. So as I was finishing my bed, I knew it would need a new duvet cover, so I made this one:

If you're like me, you have things in your head that you want to find, but never can. Fabric, accessories, color combinations--you name it. Also if you are like me, I am sorry for you, because you have a crazy head full of crazy ideas. Ideas that you feel compelled to bring to fruition. I decided on a color scheme for my bedroom that was a little random:

Dark denim blue, coral, grass green, gold, gray...no way was I going to find those colors together in anything. So what's a girl to do? Create her own! I was inspired by Mandi at Vintage Revivals when she created this art piece for a friend and fellow blogger, Maskcara.

I liked how she off-centered the pinwheel. I decided I wanted something like that for my duvet cover, but big shock, it doesn't exist. So what's a girl to do? Make her own, that's what! I bought a cheap white king sized duvet cover from Target, this one:

It was only $35, and it was in the store. I figured if I messed it up, $35 was not the end of the world. Although it is thin, it did wash up with very few wrinkles, which I like. You have to be sure and pre-wash the cover to remove any sizing in the fabric. I made a template that showed the colors and pattern of what I was going for. I made it in Adobe Illustrator, but I'm sure you could do the same with Photoshop, or even easier, a piece of paper and colored pencils or crayons.

I didn't want to compromise on the shades of color that I picked, so I just used regular latex from Home Depot. Some colors I had already, some I bought samples of. I mixed each paint color 2 parts paint to 1 part Martha Stewart Fabric Medium, available at Joanne's.

It's kinda messy. I found the largest flat surface I had in the house, which happened to be a ping-pong table, and spread the duvet cover out. My printer ran out of ink so my template was all blue, but you get the idea. I marked where I wanted the center of the pinwheel with green frog tape.

You need to line the duvet with plastic sheeting (available in paint section at Home Depot) at this point. If you don't, the paint will seep from layer through layer and will make your duvet stick together, and stick to the surface too. I trimmed the plastic to a little larger than the cover and pinned the edges of the duvet through the plastic to keep it into place.  I love duvet covers, I hate putting duvets in them. I feel like it's a one-on-one wrestling match that always ends with a score of Duvet Cover 1, Jen 0. This goes double for plastic. But it's still very important to get it in there and to the edges. It will bleed through, not the end of the world if it does in some spots, but you want to avoid as much as you can.  I taped of the top half of the duvet cover, making sure to run my fingers along the inside edge of the tape to make a super-tight seal to the cover.

I followed my design and added the paint/fabric medium mixture to each section.

Where I had sections of paint against each other, I carefully painted against the existing color with a small detail brush, and then filled in the rest of the section with a larger brush. The gold shimmers in the light!

Top section, done!

I then did the bottom left quarter, and then bottom right corner, taping off and painting one section at a time. It was a large piece and at times difficult to maneuver the tape into the right direction, but as long as the tape lays flat and tight against the fabric, you are ok if the cover is bumpy and wrinkling.

I finished all of the painting and pulled the tape. Most of the edges were crisp, but where I had a little bleed through the tape I just went over with white paint.

When the paint was completely dry, I set my iron on the second-to-hottest setting (with NO STEAM) and heat set all of the paint. This is necessary if you want to wash the duvet. Which you do, trust me. With my four kids hopping around on the bed I will be washing this baby all the time. And then wrestling the duvet back into the cover!

I then washed the duvet inside-out on cold and let it air-dry. The fabric dried really quickly, and looked great. No paint loss at all.

I love how it turned out!

I also painted a matching Euro sham. For the next post I will give the tutorial on how to easily sew any size sham or throw pillow. Happy duvet cover painting/wrestling!

This post is linked to Remodelaholic!