Toilet Bowl Cleaner Bleached Rag Pillows

I’m so freaking excited to share this project with you today! It’s a project that didn’t go as planned and almost ended up in the garbage, but by thinking outside of the box…. or in this case, the trash can, 

I ended up with two new favorite pillows.

Are you a fan of the Indigo Shibori trend that seems to be everywhere right now?

I am! Totally! I can’t get enough of this amazing blue and white designed print. 

As I was drooling over these fabulous pillows on page 4 of my Pottery Barn catalog, I got to thinking,  “I could probably make something similar myself” And so that is how this whole project began.

I had a pair of old blue curtains on hand that I knew would be perfect for this project. The curtains already had a faded look to them because I had used them to cover my patio furniture cushions last summer. 

I came up with the idea of using toilet bowl cleaner with bleach to create a pattern on the fabric. 

Looking back, I think I would have been better off using a bleach pen, but this is what I had on hand so I went for it.

 I created lines here and there on the curtain with the toilet bowl cleaner keeping the design rather simple.

 I let it sit in the sun for several hours to dry.  As it was drying at first the bleach turned pink so I waited for the pink to fade to white and then I threw it in the washing machine.

 I actually ran the wash 3 times because there was so much soap bubbles in the bottom of the machine from the toilet cleaner.  Then I took it outside to dry in the sun.

Just look at this! This is how it came out of the wash!!!

 The bleach tore the curtain to shreds!! Now this is where a normal person would have said, “Well that didn’t work!” and thrown the destroyed fabric in the trash.  Well, being that I’m ‘not normal’ I thought, “It’s still cool, I could work with it”

And so I did.

I took my scissors and cut it up into pieces. I pinned the pieces to the second curtain.  Oh, I guess I should have mentioned, I only bleached one of the curtains, therefore I had the second curtain to use as the pillow structure.  I just cut the curtain in half so that I could have two pillows.

 I first sewed the pieces onto the fabric with my sewing machine, and then I used my Pocket Pillow instructions to turn them into pillows.

 I am so tickled with how they turned out.

I currently have them sitting on the daybed in our office.

 Oh and there is my sweet Pug, Abby that we just found out has diabetes and I am slowing getting use to having to give her a shot everyday.  She’s such a good doggie, I love her so much.

I’m also loving these pillows so much!

 I just can’t get over how cool and unique they are.  There is something about all of the tares and holes that get me all excited. 

 They look like a favorite pair of levi’s that have been worn over and over again. 

So I don’t know if this is a project you will want to attempt to re-create.  Like I mentioned, a bleach pen would probably have worked way better. But then again, this rag look is pretty cool too.

Thanks for stopping by,

Emily