Making Pillows

I don't really toot my own horn all that much, but I have to on this post. I'm a genius. Seriously.

A little while back I did my placemat pillows, and I thought I was so smart. I received a bunch of comments telling me I was, and a few saying they had done the same thing. Sigh...so I'm not so original, even when I think I am. And I'm probably not the first one to come up with this next ingenious idea, but I refuse to google around to see if anyone else has done the same thing just yet. I'm basking in the awesomeness of being so smart.

So what is it already?! Well, the placemat pillows were great, but they had one downside. They're pretty small. It's hard to find large enough placemats to stuff for bigger accent pillows.  While I was pondering this in the placemat isle in Target, I couldn't help but notice the napkins section.  The napkins were exactly the colors I was looking for.  I took them out of the packaging, and a light bulb in my head went off.  Napkin Pillows!!

Those of you that have been following my blog for sometime know about my love of Fabri-tac.  From my bench cushion, key  art, placemat pillows, mini planter makover, and most recently the Nursery Monogram...anytime I need to sew something, I fake it with the magical stuff.  I think in fabri-tac.  Sad?!  Perhaps... convenient, most definitely!

Enough already...onto the tutorial!

Start with two napkins of the same size (mine were 20 x 20).  I used a brown napkin for the back, and the floral napkin for the front.

Place both napkins with the part you want showing towards each other.  Run a bead of fabri-tac along the hem / seam of the napkin and press together.  Repeat for three sides, making sure to keep your hem lines straight.

You should wind up with something looking like this.  Flip your new pillowcase right side out.

Then shove a pillow inside.  I actually had an old pillow that I haven't used for quite some time in a closet, so I shoved it in my pillow cover.

I did the last part two different ways to see which one I'd like better for future pillows.  You can either  run a bead of fabri-tac on the hem line and press it together to finish it off with a more crisp look like the pillow above...

Or you can fold over both hems and glue them together like you did the rest of the pillow.  Whichever you like better!

Here they are in their new home!

One last full room shot.  (Like what you see?  Check out my posts on painting the floors, building a daybed, building the second daybed, refinishing a sewing machine cabinet (one day I'll learn how to sew), and making over shelves I found at Goodwill.)  Next up on the pillow list is putting the two white pillows on the left side back into my living room.  I've already got the napkins ready!

The best part of all of this was the cost.  For the florally four pack of napkins, I paid $10, and for the brown I paid $8.  That'll make me four pillows, and these colors go perfectly with the rest of my house, so everything is interchangeable.  I already had the pillow inserts, so those cost me nothing!

Cost per pillow = $4.50.  Oh yeah!

Stay tuned for Friday's post...I'm hosting my very first giveaway for followers of Kara's Korner!

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