DIY Houndstooth Pattern Pillow with ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape (Plus! Two other home decor tutorials!)

I can't believe Fall is here! That means winter is around the corner...I love winter sometimes :) I hate the snowy roads, so I guess there's that. But I do love fresh snow on the lawn (not roads) and the crisp air. Did I sour your Fall mood? :) Here in Utah, you are lucky to get a good month of Fall in before the first snow fall. In fact, it snows almost every year on my anniversary and that's in the first week of October. I hate to even think of that. That's like 2 weeks away. Ugh.


I am loving that metallic colors are in this year. You'll start noticing that in my upcoming posts I am obsessing over gold...obsessing! To go with this trend and to bring in some metallics into my new guest bedroom, I decided to create some cute pillows with gold and silver paint.

To get this look, I partnered with  ScotchBlue^TM Painter’s Tape and taped off my pillows with a cute pattern and added a little shimmer with some candles. This post is chalk-full of tutorials on how to do the houndstooth pattern (yes! without a stencil, just using tape), the triangle pillows and the candles.

The supplies are simple, you just need something to paint on and something to paint with along with ScotchBlue^TM Painter's Tape for Delicate Surfaces with Advanced Edge-Lock™ Paint Line Protector (#2080EL).

 For the first tutorial, here's how you do the houndstooth pattern. Did you know that houndstooth is actually pretty easy to do? You wouldn't think so :) Really, it's just a series of squares. Just look at it, and dissect it. When you see it like that, it makes the pattern completely manageable and doable.

First off, tape your pillow to a flat surface and measure where you want your squares. To create this size I used 2.5" squares. So, place a mark on the tape every 2.5" on every side making sure that you 2.5" marks line up on each side.

 Now, you are essentially going to tape off every other row. So, the white spaces should still be 2.5" and the blue tape expanse should measure 2.5" also.

 Do the same thing with the other sides. Your pattern should end up looking like this:

 Paint the larger squares. Wait to dry completely before going to the next step.

 Now move over the vertical lines to cover the squares you just painted. Keep the horizontal lines where they are.

 On the empty squares, take a piece of tape and go from corner to corner. Have the tape go below the corners (see below to have this make more sense). Do this in all the empty squares.

 Now tape off the top corner of each of these squares. The easiest way to do this is to line another piece of tape parallel to the piece you just laid in the previous step. Then place this corner piece parallel to that. You will have three tape pieces in a row now. Remove the middle piece and it should look like this:

 Paint. Wait to completely dry.

 Now remove all the tape except for the border. Start fresh with new pieces placed across the vertical rows you just painted, leaving the open pieces to be all white rows (except for the bottom on mine..don't mind that :) )

 For this step, you want your open squares to be directly above the fully painted squares. So, place your vertical rows next to the filled square row.

 In the empty squares, place your piece of tape corner to corner, this time the tape is going to be above the corners.

 Place the corner pieces of tapes on the bottom left this time instead of the top right like before. If you look at the differences, you are painting the 2nd and 4th row this time, whereas before you were painting the 1st and 3rd rows.

 Paint.

 Take off the tape and you should be pleasantly surprised to find an actual houndstooth pattern!

 Okay, now for the second tutorial. The triangle or X pillows. This is a super simple pattern (especially compared to the other one!) Just tape a huge X corner to corner.

Next is creating the smaller triangles parallel to the huge X. Just place three pieces of tape parallel to the big X on each side. Your fourth row will be the row you keep on. Remove the other pieces.

 Your corner pieces will probably look horrible and if you leave them like that, you won't get the point you need, so, fold the ends in. Each pieces fold should be at the edge of the other piece.

 Do this all around the pillow and paint!

 I just used cheap pillow cases to do this pattern and they turned out beautiful :) This same pattern looks especially cute on square pillows.

 Okay, now for the final tutorial! Using ScotchBlue Painters Tape on candles. I have had these plain ol' boring candles sitting around for forever and decided to spruce them up. On two of them, I decided to do rows. This is super easy, just tape off rows with the tape. 

 For the larger bands of glitter, I cut the tape in half and placed around the candle (not pictured, sorry!)

And for the polka-dot, I traced out some circles and cut them out with an exacto knife and placed them randomly on the candle.

 For the glitter, I decided to use paint to adhere the glitter since I was out of glue :) I wasn't sure if it would work, but it did! Plus, using the paint gave a nice background to the glitter making it look more full.

 I love the glitter from this. A good way to get the glitter to stick is to use hair spray. Although I do not recommend this if you are going to light these candles. That would be a disaster. But, if it's just for the decor .... :)

I know that the candles are completely Winter...just call me prepared for the snow :)

And I just can't get over the houndstooth! I've been wanting to do this pattern for forever but didn't ever quite figure out how. I'm so glad I finally did! This may make it's appearance on a ton of more things in my house :)

Enter the Home of ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape Contest October 1, 2014 through November 15, 2014 and you could win $5,000 to put towards a home makeover! The first 500 to submit an eligible entry will receive one (1) roll of the new ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape with Advanced Edge-Lock™ Paint Line Protector!

Check out this project as a featured project example in the contest! 

Contest open to legal residents of the U.S. and D.C. (excluding AZ, MD, NJ, ND, TN and VT),
who are 18+ (19+ in AL & NE and 21+ in MS) at the time of entry. Void where prohibited. Enter from October 1, 2014 at 12:00:01 a.m. CT through 11:59:59 p.m. CT on November 15, 2014. All contest communications, entry/judging criteria and details subject to the full Official Rules. To enter and for Official Rules, visit www.scotchblue.com/homecontest. Sponsor: 3M Construction and Home Improvement Markets Division, St. Paul, MN.

	Be sure to check out The social pages for ScotchBlueTM ! ScotchBlue™ Facebook page ScotchBlue™ Twitter page  ScotchBlue™ Pinterest page

I am proud to be a 3M sponsored blogger, and, as part of my responsibilities, I get the opportunity to evaluate ScotchBlue™ Painter’s Tape. Opinions are my own and additional products used in the project were selected by me. 

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 Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via a cash payment, gift, or something else of value to write it. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”