We love making Christmas-related decor and getting excited about the upcoming holiday season. If you’ve never used printable cotton fabric before, it’s a really easy way to integrate designs with other fabric, such as a pillow cover. Keep reading to find out just how easy it is to make your own Christmas pillow!

Supplies Needed:

Step One: Prepare the Design

1. Open the Christmas Camper design (Design ID#280103) by locating it in your library. Resize it and move the image to the holding area.

2. We need to extend the cut line a little bit. To do that, open the Offset panel, select the outer line, click the Offset tab, and then select Apply.

3. Delete the inner part (the traced outline) and place your design in the middle of the offset line. To center the offset line and design, select them both and click the Center tab on the top tool panel of your screen.

4. Rotate the design (Object Menu > Rotate > Rotate by 90° counterclockwise).

5. Go to the Registration Marks tab (located in the Page Setup panel) and turn on registration marks by setting the style to Type 1. Resize the design so that it will fit on your cushion cover but not overlap the registration marks borders.

Step Two: Print & Cut

1. Print out your design on the Silhouette Cotton Fabric by selecting the printer icon.

2. Place the printed sheet on your cutting mat and feed it into your Silhouette machine.

3. Go to the Send panel. Choose “Cotton Fabric, Printable” as your material type. Adjust your blade if necessary and send your cut job to your Silhouette machine.

4. After cutting the designs, remove the designs from the cutting mat.

Step Three: Sew on the Design

1. Sew your design on the pillow cover.

Step Four: Cutand Apply Heat Transfer Material

1. Open the Merry Christmas design (Design ID #278796) by locating it in your library. Resize it so it fits on your pillow cover and won’t cover the camper design.

2. Use the Trace feature to trace the outer line of the Christmas tree.

3. Before you send your design to your Silhouette to cut from the heat transfer material, make sure to MIRROR IT. Don’t forget or else all of your text will be backward when you go to apply the heat transfer. The easiest way to mirror your design is to right-click your design and select “Flip Horizontally.” Place part of the design that you want to cut from bright white glitter heat transfer on the working space. Go to the Page Setup panel, choose None as your mat option, and adjust the page size.

4. Feed a bright white glitter heat transfer material roll (glossy side down) directly to the Silhouette cutting machine using the roll feeder. If you are using the CAMEO, don’t forget to adjust the rollers according the size of the heat transfer roll you are going to cut.

5. Under the Send panel, select “Heat Transfer, Glitter” as your material type. Adjust the blade if necessary, and click Send. Silhouette Studio® will ask you if you need to mirror your design. Since we already did, we can click Send As-Is when the message pops up.

6. Once the image is cut, select Unload on your machine and remove the heat transfer from the machine.

7. Weed out the excess heat transfer from your design using your Silhouette hook tool. Repeat this process for the tree design with the green glitter heat transfer.

8. After the design is weeded, place it on your pillow cover (plastic side up).

9. Use an iron (or a heat press) to adhere the heat transfer. The iron should be set to no steam on a cotton setting. It shouldn’t be set higher than 300 degrees Fahrenheit. We recommend using a piece of light-weight fabric between the iron and the heat transfer.

10. Once the design has cooled, peel away the clear plastic liner. If the heat transfer material continues to stick to the liner, then lay it back down, replace the protective sheet or cloth, and iron some more.

Now our pillow cover is ready!

We love how this pillow cover turned out! It’s got some great details thanks to the printable fabric and the glitter heat transfer. You can use this to cover a pillow in your own home or give it to friends and neighbors to help spread the Christmas cheer!