DIY Placemat Pillow In Less Than 10 Minutes

Turn a placemat into a pillow cover in about 10 minutes with this simple home decor craft.

Easy, inexpensive and gorgeous. Come see how to make one of your own.


Today I have a tale to tell about the perils of decorating ~ the difficulty of getting something in your head, but being unable to find it.

While it's not a dangerous story, although I did prick my finger with a needle, it is one that starts out with frustration.

It does, however, have a happy ending.

But let's get back to the beginning, shall we?

I adore my bedroom. Lots of green and white.

Fresh and festive in all seasons, but at Christmas I usually like to add something small to decorate the room.

For years, I've wanted a holiday pillow, but haven't been able to find one that was just right.


This year, I was determined to find one.

I shopped like crazy, in stores, online, looked high and low for the perfect color, perfect size and perfect match to the vision I had in my head.

Of course, no such pillow existed.

They either had too much color to go with my green and white scheme, they were printed on a beige background or they were too large for the bed.

So I decided to make one myself. 

I even designed my own graphic. 
But holiday parties, a dinner I hosted for ten, festivals, an ornament exchange and shopping all took precedence over my pillow and that was the end of that.

Then last night, my daughter and I took a quick run out to Target to grab a few green towels to update the color scheme in my master bathroom and we spotted these Christmas placemats.

And at $4.99 each, I had to have them.

Unfortunately, they didn't work out.

The pictures here are dark, taken close to midnight, they're more of bright white and when I put them in my bisque colored kitchen, they didn't look right.

Bummer.

I really wanted to keep them.


But then I realized they were double sided.

They were constructed with two separate fabrics and when I pulled on them, they came apart easily. Hmmm....

Suddenly, the lightbulb went on. They would make great Christmas pillow covers.

The pattern was perfect, the colors were perfect and the size was perfect.

So in the middle of the night, I got to work.


It took me about ten minutes to turn that Christmas placemat into the throw pillow cover of my dreams.

I honestly can't believe how simple it was.

As long as you find a placemat constructed in the same way, this crafty DIY, will work in any season.

More pillow makeovers:

FRINGED KITCHEN TOWEL PILLOW
POM POM DISH TOWEL PILLOW
FIXING FLAT PILLOWS
STENCILED CHICKEN PILLOWS

How To Make Pillow From A Placemat

I started by taking note of the two sets of seams holding the fabric together.

The larger red thread was just decorative. It was embroidery thread stitched over the already closed seams.


My pillow form was a small square and since the placemat was a rectangle, I was going to have to make it smaller to fit.

I would do that by taking in both sides.

However. If you you buy a large pillow form or use batting, you'll only need to open one side, slip your stuffing inside and close it up again.

No resizing necessary.

Since I wanted a different shape, I had bit more work to do.

Step 1: I clipped the embroidery thread right after the knot on the corner and began carefully unwinding it along the short side of the placement.

Step 2: I went back to that corner and using a seam ripper, removed the second set of seams that were truly holding the placemat together.

If your placemat doesn't have a decorative stitch, this is where your process would begin.


As the thread was removed, a hole began to open, confirming my notion that I could just pop a pillow form inside.

I kept ripping the stitch out until the entire side was open.

Note that I only had to do this to one side of my placemat.

Step 3:  I turned the placemat inside out, measured how big I needed the pillow cover to be and ran a stitch up the side that was still closed up, thereby making the cover smaller.

For this, I used a machine. You could also do it by hand and if you don't sew you could use iron on tape.

I didn't cut off the excess, I just folded it back inside. I figured I might want to make a bigger pillow one day. Or another placemat apron. 

Or who knows, maybe turn it back into a placemat.

Just kidding. Or not. Crafting is a tricky muse.


Anyway.

Step 4: I opened the other side of the placemat.

I folded the excess under to create the right size for my pillow form.

However, this time I only stitched about a quarter of the way down from the top and a quarter of the way up the side from the bottom, with my machine.

I left a large hole in the center to slip the pillow form inside.

Step 4: Hand sew the pillow closed.

The longest part of the process was hand sewing the pillow closed after I stuffed my form inside. Even that didn't take very long.

It's a simple process that only requires you to thread the needle and loop it from one side of the fabric to the other, pulling tightly so the two sides are drawn together.

When I was done, I honestly couldn't believe my result.

Wasn't this just a placemat like ten minutes ago??


It turned out better than I ever could've imagined.

I wanted to try it on my bed, but since it was after midnight and my husband was already sleeping, it didn't seem fair to wake him up to calm my decorating crazy.

But when I plopped it on the bed this morning, I was thrilled.

It was the pillow of my dreams, so close to what I had in mind and to what I had designed.

But better. Certainly easier.

No pillow cover to construct, no zipper to install.

And way less expensive.

Now that's what I call, just right.

I told you there was a happy ending.

Would you try this?

I love home decor Christmas crafting and have tons of easy DIYs. Here are a few of my favorites:

CHRISTMAS GLITTER CANDLE HOLDER
WOODEN SIGN FROM OLD FAN BLADES