Christmas Deer Pillows

I somehow got it in my head that I wanted to make Christmas deer pillows to add some red to our great room and to go along with our more modern joy sign that I made last year.  Also, my super sweet husband gifted me with one of these guys from Target in November as a little surprise treat, and it was inspiration for my pillow project as well:

So with inspiration and materials in hand, I went to work creating some deer pillows.  The first step was finding a deer image online that I could reproduce by hand.  I measured my pillows and determined how big I wanted my deer head to be on the pillow, and I used that size as a guide to create a deer template out of poster board.  I only drew half of the deer head, and then I folded the poster board in half and cut out my drawing to get a completely symmetric deer head.  

Here is my deer template:

 The rest was easy and involved pinning the template onto white fleece fabric.  I cut around the template again to create a white fleece deer head that I then ironed on (using the same process as Charm's Anchor Pillow) to a red pillow cover that I sewed using material left over from Charm's birthday party and some white piping.  I used leftover Steam A Seam fusible web to adhere the deer heads to the pillows.

Here are the two pillow covers before the inserts were placed inside and the bottom side was hand sewn shut:

 And here is the after:

Simple and festive!!

Anchor Applique Pillow

I'm not even sure if 'applique' is the correct term to describe what I did to this pillow, but it is in my head so I'm going with it.  I decided I wanted to make an anchor pillow for Charm.  I originally planned to hand stitch an anchor onto a pillow using felt like I did with my Pottery Barn Teen look alike letter pillows, but I decided to try using some of the iron on adhesive that I had leftover from the pirate eye patches that I made for Charm's Pirate Party to make an anchor applique.

The process I used was very simple.  I made an envelope pillow cover with white piping using fabric and a pillow form we had on hand already:

Next I made an anchor template by folding a piece of paper in half to make a symmetric anchor shape:  

I double checked to make sure the scale was appropriate to my pillow:

I raided my fabric stash for a few anchor color options, then I cut out small pieces and ironed the Hem 2 Hem on the back of the fabric, and stenciled the anchor with a pencil onto the fabric:

I cut out the anchors and let Charm pick out which one he liked best:

Green Velour

Red stripes

Multicolored

Charm chose the simple green option.  I used tape to keep the applique in place on the pillow and then ironed the center of the applique (avoiding the area with tape on it) with a thin towel placed between the anchor and the iron.  I removed the tape once the center of the applique was well adhered to the pillow fabric.

Final product:

I love that I could use regular fabric without fear of frayed edges!

I have one more update to post, and it has something to do with this whole 'mattress on the floor' situation that was going on for a while after we switched Charm from a toddler bed to a twin sized mattress:

Have a wonderful weekend!!

Pottery Barn Teen Look-alike Pillows

I had mentioned in my birthday post that I was really liking these alphabet needlepoint pillows from Pottery Barn Teen:

Pottery Barn Teen

Alphabet Needlepoint Pillow

$29.00

I have yet to purchase or make an 's' pillow as of yet, but I did tackle the four letters that begin our family's real 'formal' names-w, e, l, h:

It was a simple project that used white duck cloth that I had on hand already, pre-made black piping and a couple sheets of black felt for the letters that I hand sewed on the pillows.

Cost Breakdown:

White Duckcloth $7 for a yard (on sale) ( I used a little over a half yard for 4 pillows)
2 sheets of black felt $1
2 packages of black piping $2.40 on sale
Stuffing was an old king sized pillow that was too flat for my liking:)=FREE

4 pillows cost just over $10 or roughly $2.50/pillow saving me over 90% off the retail price (mine aren't needlepoint, I know, so it's a loose comparison:))

Has anyone else been sewing lately?  I've been finishing one project after another, and I am loving it!!

Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick.