Homemade Pool Noodle Craft Make A Block Printed Pillow

I love that this method not only a creative way to print and create at home, but an easy DIY to make handmade home decor with an ordinary, every day object. I know we’ve seen potato printing, but I wanted to use something out of the ordinary to make a fun homemade pool noodle craft block printed pillow. I thought it was time to give block printing on fabric with a pool noodle a try and I wanted share this tutorial with you because it was so easy! This would be fun for the kids to try and such a fun and easy way to experience printmaking, no carving tools needed and the foam pool noodle was just a $1.25 at the dollar store!!! You can watch a video of making each of the pillows in the video player ( a brief ad will play first.).

Pool noodles are really inexpensive and make cute arch and circular stamps and can be used in many craft projects! They have so many more uses than just hanging out in the pool!

To block print on fabric with a pool noodle, you’ll need a couple of items for this DIY project. A blank surface to print on a like a tote bag, napkins, or a canvas pillow cover like we are using. Fabric paint or acrylic paint in choice of colors and fabric textile medium, masking or painter’s tape,  paper plates and an iron to heat set the fabric paint (and yarn if you want to make tassels for the ends.).

Block printing on fabric is a great way to make custom home decor. Some of the best fabrics for stamping on are natural woven fabrics such as canvas, cotton duck, and linen

Start by washing and ironing your fabric surface to remove any sizing or oils on the surface. While that’s happening, we can make our pool noodle stamps.

To make your DIY stamp, cut the pool noodle (carefully!) into a full circle shape, a half circle shape, and then long ways to create a full arch shape. It can even be quartered to make a smaller shape as you’ll see below. Wait until you seen how cool these look when they are done , because they make making own stamps so easy and are reusable too!

It’s important to tape your fabric flat with the painter’s tape to print fabric so it doesn’t move.  You can go very random on your pattern, or you can carefully map it out. I had a few design ideas  and colors in my head I decided to go with, and I started in the center of my pillow case. I couldn’t find a pre-mixed fabric paint color I liked so I mixed acrylic paint and fabric paint medium to make my ink for my pillows.

I found it was easiest to mix my paints on a paper plate and dip my pool noodle stamp ends in the paint. You can also apply paint to the end of the pool noodle stamp with a paint brush if dipping is too messy.

Make it: See how you can make your own rubber stamp here

“Ink” the stamp with my acrylic paint mixture, and off load a little bit of the paint on a paper towel so the stamp wasn’t too gloopy. I also did a few test stamps on a paper towel to check for how much the paint transferred and how much pressure I needed to apply (you can also do this on a scrap piece of cardboard or scrap fabric.).

Check out : this creative take on pool noodle printing with Alisa Burke

Then I started stamping my pillowcase by pressing my stamp into the fabric and applying even pressure. Lift straight up and then reload the stamp with more fabric paint.

It was super fast and easy, and so fun! I started in the center of the pillow and I kept it pretty simple for the first few pillows with just a few colors. I wanted to get a feel for it. I love how the end results look! It opens up a world of options! If you want everything to be even, you can use a ruler and painter’s tape to mark out lines. I was easily able to re-stamp an area if I wanted it darker as well.

After curing the paint according to the manufacturers directions, I made tassels from yarn to embellish the hand-stamped pillows and inserted a pillow form. They are just so cute and have great geometric shapes. I am inspired to try a few other designs!

I made this fun orange pattern design by cutting one of the arch pieces into a quarter to create a leaf shape. It makes the perfect outdoor decorative pillow for the summer. I recently found a vintage army cot at the thrift store and needed some pillow so it was an awesome place to hang out and read. These pillows were perfect! I’ll share more about that in other post!

I hope you give this fun method of block printing on fabric with a pool noodle! This pool noodle craft would also be so cute on jeans, a t-shirt and more!