North Pole Coal Co. Pillow

For some reason, I can’t unwrap my mind from the North Pole having a little coal company for the coal needed for all the kids on the naughty list.  Not that anyone in my house has been extra naughty this year (only half my walls are colored on, not all of them) I don’t think we’ll be giving out any coal, but it is good to have reminders hanging around.  We already have a Christmas Coal Sack sitting on a shelf, and when the girls get a little too out of hand I bring over the bag and remind them of the lumps inside… it works every time!

But not all Coal is for naughty children, since the North Pole occupants need to stay warm, and that Polar Express train needs to keep chugging along.  That’s why I wanted to make something a little more friendly and comforting, like a pillow! 

I designed this in both Photoshop and my Silhouette Studio, and then cut it out with freezer paper.  I was going to screen print it like we did for the coal sacks, but I am out of mod podge and I was only making one.  Still, I painted a square of linen with the screen printing ink; I really like the quality. Of course some of my freezer paper didn’t adhere to the linen and I ended up with some out-of-place ink blobs!

I wanted it to look like one of those old feed sacks, except different ;).  I changed the establishment date from the Coal Sacks, because really, it should be Christmas Day!  It is always Christmas at the North Pole! The original sacks had the year that Santa was celebrated in the United States, 1773 (according to Wikipedia).

I saved my studio file, if you have a Silhouette machine and you want to make one too, just shoot me an e-mail (on my contact info!) and I’ll send you the file.