Poinsettia Pillow Sham using Artesprix Ink Pads & Stencils

Greetings! Design Team Member Alison Heikkila here, It's time to tell you about Artesprix's Blank of the Month for December, which is a Pillow Sham. Since this is a larger Blank, I decided it would be fun to do a repeating design all over the Sham. I chose to work with an easy-to-use layering stencil from A Colorful Life Designs.

**This post contains affiliate links. That means that I may be compensated if you purchase through the links I have provided, however the cost to you would remain the same.**

What is Artesprix Iron-on-Ink?

Artesprix Sublimation Markers, Ink, and Paint are specially formulated to allow you to use basic copy paper to: color, stamp, stencil, and monoprint anything you wish and turn it into a heat-transferable design. These designs are then applied to a polyester or polyester coated substrate with heat and pressure. You can use a heat press or a home iron! These designs, through this process of sublimation, will become permanent on your substrates.

Supplies: 
Pillow Sham
Sublimation Ink Pads in Red, Yellow, and Green
Heat Tape
Protective Paper
Other:
A Colorful Life Designs: Layered Poinsettia Stencil
Blending Brushes
Low Tack Tape
Copy Paper

Step-by-Step Tutorial:

Step 1: Use low tack tape to adhere the stencil to the copy paper. Ink the poinsettia with the Red Sublimation Ink Pad and a blending brush. 

Step 2: Move the stencil up to it's next position and ink the leaves and center using the Green and Yellow Sublimation ink pads respectively with blending brushes. We'll need to make several of these to cover the Pillow Sham. I made 6. 

This is what a finished poinsettia looks like. 

Step 3: Loosely cut around each of the poinsettias so that you can easily place them on the Pillow Sham when you sublimate. 

Step 4: Since the sham has an overlapping opening in the back, I thought it would be easier to tuck a piece of Protective Paper inside before I started adhering my poinsettias, to protect the inside of the Sham. You can see the paper sticking out here. 

Step 5: Begin attaching the poinsettias to the Pillow Sham with Heat Tape. Because of the size of the Sham, I recommend doing only 1 or 2 at a time, to ensure they completely fit under the heat source platen in a single press. 

Step 6: Create the "Sublimation Sandwich". We've already got a piece of Protective Paper on the inside of the Pillow Sham, now we need to add one to the top. Plus, since I have some of the design hanging off the edge, I added an additional piece in the back to ensure it stays white where intended. 

Step 7: Sublimate the design at 385°F degrees for 60 seconds. 

Step 8: Time for the "Peek Test"! Carefully lift the edge of one of your designs to make sure it’s sublimated properly. If it looks good, you can remove all of the papers. If you need to sublimate again, you can put it back into the heat press. This looks great, so let’s add more flowers!

Step 9: Repeat the steps above and add more of your cut out design to the Pillow Sham and adhere with Heat Tape. Be sure to use Protective Paper anywhere there is already a design too, so nothing accidentally transfers to your heat press or iron.

Here is the finished Pillow Sham! I love how bold the colors are after sublimation. This is going to look wonderful with the rest of our Christmas decorations. All you have left to do is to add a pillow inside. This Pillow Sham can be washed if needed, it will never fade, crack or peel!

You can easily make a coordinated set by using other Blanks to go along with this one. The Potholder or Apron would look wonderful with this stencil, and it would be so fun to have a matched set! How would you like to get more ideas on how to use the Blank of the Month and Artesprix’s fantastic mediums? There’s a Facebook Group that’s just for fans of Artesprix! You can click HERE to join.

Also, don’t forget to visit the Artesprix store to see all of the available blanks and bundles, so you can get started with sublimation. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Have an inspiring day!

Alison Heikkila 

**This post contains affiliate links. That means that I may be compensated if you purchase through the links I have provided, however the cost to you would remain the same.**