{Tutorial} Placemat Pillow

There's something about the newness of spring that always inspires me to renew and freshen up things around my house.  After a weekend spent mega cleaning, purging, and organizing, I was ready for some fresh new decor.  For a long time, I've been wanting to replace/update the pillows on my sofa but every time I found some I liked, I couldn't believe the price... $30-40 for a little pillow?

Yeah.  Some places are proud of their pillows, people.

Then, this past weekend, I found a gorgeous placemat in the summer section at Target.  It's a thick canvas material, double sided, and only $2.99!  Rather than see a placemat, I saw a pillow waiting to be stuffed... and thus the Placemat Pillow tutorial.

What You'll Need:

Double-sided placemat

Seam Ripper

Polyfil (or stuffing of choice)

Needle and coordinating thread (or sewing machine, if that's how you roll)

Step 1:  Take the seam ripper and open up about 4 inches along one of the sides.

Step 2:  Stuff to your heart's content.  (I know... ridiculously easy right?!)

Step 3.  Close seam with straight stitch on machine or backstitch by hand.  I chose to use my machine, so I pushed the stuffing to the far opposite side to help keep my seam line straight while sewing.

I also left the thread line from aforementioned seam-ripping as a guide so my new seam lines up with the previous one.

Step 4:  Fluff and enjoy your new $2.99 pillow!!

Now, go make one... and email me the link if you do so I can enjoy your fabulous pillow too~