DIY Striped Deck Chairs

 These striped deck chair slings were last weekend's project. Last year when I started working on them I was disappointed to discover striped canvas fabric was quite expensive. And even though the sling doesn't take a lot of yardage I wasn't ready to spend that much. Of course I could have gone with plain boring solid colored fabric for a reasonable price.... That is when I decided to DIY! 

  For materials I used leftover cotton drill from the Sofa Slipcover Project, craft paint, fabric medium additive, sponge brushes and Frog tape. 

I was super scientific and just used the frog tape to space the stripes. This worked perfectly! I ended up with about a half inch extra space on the end, but that all worked out in the end as you will see.

 The Frog tape worked wonderfully! A roll is slightly more expensive then regular painter's tape, but well worth it. The only bleeding through was my fault at not pressing it down firmly enough.

 Once all the tape is down, it's paint time!

 I was trying for a bright beachy color palette, but it ended up more Easter egg looking. Oh well, it is still cheerful!

 Before painting I mixed in Martha Stewert's fabric medium. This is suppose to thin the paint and make it more flexible on the fabric. I might not have used enough as it still feels a bit thick and crunchy on the fabric. (though better then just straight paint)

 Once all the stripes were painted, the tape came off.

 Crisp even stripes!

 After a quick lunch break, I decided they needed to be a bit more stripey. So using the same method as the first round of stripes (using the tape as spacers) I taped another set but started on the opposite edge with the extra half an inch. This off set the stripes and created small stripes in between the larger stripes.

 It was a little tricky to visualize the color sequence at this point. I should picked my colors before taping. 

 I didn't really have a firm plan how I wanted the slings to turn out, they just needed to be colorful and striped! I think it fits the criteria!

Now all I need is some warm summer breezes and sun!

I am thinking I like the natural wood color the best now. Opps! guess I will have to figure out how to strip the blue. What do you think? Painted or Natural?