October 24, 2011

Placemat Pillow

I found this pretty placemat at Target a couple weeks ago for $3.99 and remembered that ThriftyDecorChick had once talked about how easy it is to turn placemats into pillows. So into my cart it went! I'm very careful about how much I spend at Target, we all know we'd like to take that whole store home with us!! But $3.99 seemed like a great price for a pillow :) 


I knew I'd need some filler to finish this project and I didn't want to spend much, so at one of my many thrift store stops I picked up a decent looking pillow for $1.25 planning on ripping it open. 


I got out my MIL's seam ripper because I haven't bought myself one yet :) 





And I carefully ripped the seam along the bottom near a corner, but not all the way to the corner. I don't know why, but this just seemed like a good place to open it up.






I opened it up large enough to stick my fist through.






Then I got out my thrift store pillow. It was actually a new pillow from Target (my local Targets give to the local Goodwill stores). It was a nice pillow, but just kind of plain and boring. So I opened it up carefully with the seam ripper hoping that I might put that fabric to work some other time on some other project.






Then I just put the stuffing into my placemat. Unfortunately the stuffing was green, but luckily it didn't show through my light tan placemat fabric!






I ended up using only half of the stuffing from the thrift store pillow, so I have some leftover for the Christmas placemats that I just bought last week.....






I threaded a needle with some light tan thread and I sewed the pillow shut by hand. I was actually able to use the original holes in the fabric from when the placemat was sewn together. It looks great and isn't noticeable at all!! 






Here it is finished sitting on my $7 Saver's chair that I whitewashed over the summer. It sits in the basement and brings a nice new color down there. But the walls are knotty pine that has been primed and patched but never painted! So this was taken in my kitchen :) 





Here it is with my blue pillow. It is just another envelope closure pillow! I got that fabric at fabricguru.com for only $8 a yard. I just LOVE these colors together!






I used to long for the pretty accent pillows I'd see at stores and in catalogs. And now that I've found easy, inexpensive ways to make them for myself I just can't stop!!




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5 comments:

  1. Oh my goodness what a great idea! It turned out so pretty!

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  2. I was going to look for a plain pillow to make the felt leaf pillow you made (since im not very good at sewing) but now I know you can make pillows out of placemats Im doing that! Thanks for the great tutorials and ideas!

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  3. Your Welcome!! I hope you find an awesome placemat for your pillow! :)

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  4. What an awesome idea! Cheap, creative, and chic!!!! Thanks for the tutorial! :)

    xoxo laurie

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  5. My daughter/blog partner and I just bought this placemat to use as a topper for a small cabinet in her dining room. Your pillows look great.

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