Placemat Repurposed into No Sew Pillow - Craft Room Project #2

While I was supposed to be grocery shopping at Target, I found some fun clearance placemats that matched the colors of my new craft room. They were only $1.98, so I grabbed two without having an exact plan for using them. Worse case scenario I could always use them as….placemats! Please tell me you all get sucked into spending way too much time getting to the actual grocery section when shopping at Target 🙂

Although these would have been great as placemats, I realized it would be really easy to make a pillow out of them. I even had some iron-on fusing web on hand for curtains I’ve been meaning to hem for….oh….two years! I also had a cheap IKEA pillow that was losing it’s stuffing. The seam was ripped and I hadn’t bother fixing it because I wasn’t loving the color of the pillow.

I decided to apply the fusing web about 1/2 inch from the edge to give the finished pillows a border. I cut out about six inches off the web on the bottom edge so I would have a place to insert the stuffing. Starting with a full strip and cutting out the middle gave me exactly the right amount of fusing web to seal up the pillow after I stuffed it. Make sure you move the cut out section away from the iron & your pillowcase before continuing!

Next I put the 2nd placement on top and ironed away! The directions said to hold for 10 seconds, but these placemats were pretty thick. I had to go over most areas more than once. It still only took two or three minutes to have everything fused.

When I was done ironing, my opening was just the right size to stuff my new pillow.

Once my pillow was stuffed, it was time to iron the opening. I used the piece of fusion web I cut out earlier. I found it easiest to stand the pillow up at about a 45 degree angle. It was a little tricky to iron this section because of the stuffing. But by “tricky” I’m talking a 2 on the 1-10 difficulty scale while the rest of the project is a 1. So easy!

And that is it! Here’s a close up of the finished pillow.

Start to finish the placemats were transformed in under ten minutes. For me, the cost was $4 – just the placemats. It would be a little more if you had to buy the iron-on fusing material and/or the pillow stuffing. Even with those other costs, this DIY pillow is more frugal than buying a new one!

Isn’t that little bird cute too? He was in a clearance postcard pack at IKEA & looks great hanging on the craft room wall. See why I couldn’t pass up the placemats? They match my little birdy so well!