do it yourself grainsacks

These french linen-vintage grain sack-feedsack-vintage burlap bags or whatever you call them are the coolest things and I wanted some.  I wanted some pillows and I wanted some to recover a couple of chairs and possibly a couple of barstools.  I like the simple ones with one or two stripes.  However, they are way more expensive then I want to pay so I haven't bought any yet.  I just drool over the pictures of ones I want. 

So, my friend, Jennie, found this link and sent it to me.  Kathleen @ Musings From A French Cottage figured out how to make her own and shared the step by step instructions on her blog.  So, I gave it a try and here's how it turned out. Wait until you see the finished product!  By the way, total costs: less than $10.00 ( $6.00 for 2 yards of burlap although I only used less than a yard, $4.00 for a couple of bottles of paint althought I only used a little bit. )

Here's are my supplies: burlap, fabric paint, painter's tape, paintbrush, newspaper and a paper plate (not picture: scissors and a staplegun)

Here is the chair seat I want to recover.

First, I did a test stripe. Tape off where you want your stripe to be.

Paint!  I dry brushed the paint on lightly and repeated until I got the coverage and color I wanted. 

I wasn't sure if I wanted a red stripe or a brown stripe.  After testing both, I decided to do red. Pull the tape off and you have a stripe!

I then taped off two smaller stripes and painted those.

Here's what it looked like after the tape came off.

So, for the real thing, I decided I wanted two thin red stripes.  So, I cut a square of burlap a little bigger than my chair seats.  Taped off the stripes.

Painted the stripes red.  I found out that you can paint them as perfectly or imperfectly as you like.  The less perfect ones looked a bit more vintage and authentic.

Here's what it looked like after I pulled off the tape. At this point, I'm getting a little excited about this.

Here are my finished burlap fabrics for my two seats.  They needed to sit a while to dry completely.

Recovering the seats.

Put the seats back on the chairs.

Not bad, huh?  Ten bucks!

I put the chair back in it's place.  Sorry for the mess, we're getting ready for Valentine's Day.

I think they look really great, especially for ten bucks.  Thanks, Kathleen for the idea and tutorial.