tutorial - no-sew tufting

 

I promised I'd make a tutorial on this quite a while back, so today is the day. 

This is on how to make tufted cushioning without the sewing that I can never seem to understand. Needles... not my thing. 

Materials-

Craft foam

Fabric

Mechanical pencil

Hot glue (only hot glue will work) preferably a low-temp gun 

Paper

Optional (if you want to make the chair)-

Mat board

Paint

 

So to begin, cut your craft foam the length you want your chair or chaise or whatever you're making.

 Mark with the pencil where you want the indentions to be.

 Bend the foam and pinch one of the dots, snipping around it in a V - shape. 

Pull the craft foam out and begin doing the same to all of your markings.

Cut a reasonable amount of fabric around the foam.

Using your pencil, push the lead back into the pencil and poke the pencil through the fabric so a little lump is barely extended above the hole on the other side. That didn't make much sense :) I'll show you.

Drop a little bit of glue onto the lump and use the metal glue gun piece to spread the glue around. Wait for it to dry (should take about fifteen seconds) with your pencil holding still in its place. When the glue has cooled, pull your pencil out and the fabric will remain in the hole. Repeat for the rest of the foam.

They look like shiny spider eyes :/ I'm going to stop thinking about that.

Measure and cut another piece of craft foam identical to the first and glue it to the back. 

Glue the remaining fabric to the back and trim it as neatly as possible. 

Trace the whole thing onto paper and cut it out. Glue fabric to the piece of paper. Sorry, I forgot to take pictures of this part.

Glue it to the foam. 

And you're done! 

This next part is optional, it's just showing how I made the chair.

I drew and cut out the frame of the back of the chair.

I joined the two sets of chair backing with two of these.

For the chair legs, I set the frame against mat board, drew what I wanted the legs to look like, and cut it out. 

I glued the legs to the frame. 

After a coat of paint and a bit of sanding, I glued the frame to the foam.

When I made this tutorial I'd actually never done a trial run, so if you come across a better way to do it please tell me. 

I've used tufted cushioning here and here, but I've never actually bent the foam after gluing the tufts in. I'll figure out how to get rid of those wrinkles.

'Til next time! :D