Have you thought about adding any new Christmas decor to your home this year? Every year, I want to add decorative pillows to my Christmas decorations. I have never bought any of the cute pillows I see in the store because I have a hard time spending $20-$30 on a pillow. This year I really wanted to add some Christmas pillows and I found an inexpensive and quick way to do so.
OK, you guys…I totally may be going nuts. I swore I had never made any Christmas pillows. I kept thinking of how much I’ve always wanted Christmas pillows and how much I was totally making myself some. Hello….I was searching my blog for something (yep, I regularly read my own blog to remember what I’ve done in the past) and I saw that I had in fact made adorable Christmas pillows last year. Of course, I figured that out AFTER I had already bought the supplies for these pillows. Since I got the supplies at IKEA and it is 1.5 hours from my house, I went ahead and made the pillows anyway.
Supplies:
- Pillow form
- Pillow cover
- Stencil
- Painter’s pens
– affiliate link (I used 2 for my 2 pillows)
– affiliate link (I used 2 for my 2 pillows)Have you ever noticed how inexpensive the pillow forms are at IKEA? They are about $6. Then they sell covers for the forms that are also very inexpensive. They vary depending on what you buy, but the plain covers are also around $4. $10 for a decorative pillow…yes, please.
I was watching Jen from Tatertots & Jello on Periscope a few weeks back and she mentioned these pillow forms and covers and how they easily make inexpensive home decor for the holidays(she was using them for Halloween). She was using iron on transfer cut on the Cricut. I’ve used that before, but I have found it to be pricey and I had another idea in mind to keep these Christmas pillows inexpensive.
Do you remember when I made the adorable Thanksgiving pillow a few weeks ago? It was so easy and so crazy inexpensive, I decided to repeat that idea with these pillows.
Start by cutting out your stencil on your cutting machine. I have a Cricut
(affiliate link) and love it! I also won adhesive vinyl years ago and have been slowly using it up on stencils over the years…sadly, these were my last pieces. 🙁
If you don’t have a Cricut or cutting machine, you can also purchase a stencil or design something in a word processing software and print it out and trace. The painter’s pens are quite precise, so doing this by hand is feasible.
Carefully center and place your stencil or design onto your pillow cover.
Place a piece of cardboard or cardstock in the middle of your pillow cover so that the paint from the Painter’s pen does not mark the back of your pillow. Color your design in with your Painter’s pen.
Because my pillows were so much larger than the Thanksgiving pillow I made, it took a bit longer. I needed 2 Painter’s pens for both of my pillows. The second pen is not used up completely, but I wouldn’t have been able to complete two pillows of this size with only one Painter’s pen.
I made one of my decorative pillows to say “Merry & Bright.” This one is my favorite.
The second pillow I did with stars. I would recommend that if you don’t like the lines in my larger stars, only use smaller stars on your pillow. I couldn’t find a way to get the larger stars to not have those lines in them. I think the pillow still looks cute, but I’d personally prefer the stars to have a more solid look.
Once again, making decorative pillows this way is super affordable. It is also easy as well as a pretty quick craft. Because these pillows are larger, they weren’t a 5 minute craft like the Thanksgiving pillow, but I enjoy coloring, so this was fun to me. I love that now I have plenty of Christmas pillows. I will be able to put some pillows on the bench in my entryway as well as possibly on my bed as well. Fun! I’ve always wanted to be able to switch out the bedding in my room at Christmas…wouldn’t that be fun?! I saw some bedding at IKEA this year that if they would have had it in a King size, I would have bought it and be able to switch things out this year. Since I have a duvet cover and their prices are so great it would have worked…but they only had Queen size…boo!
What are you favorite kinds of decorative pillows to make? Sew them yourself or craft them like these? Leave me a comment below.
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These are adorable and look so much more simple than I thought they would be!
Thanks! I know…they are crazy simple. Love that for this busy time of year!