Upcycled Pillow

In our house we use throw pillows a lot - and as their name implies we use them to throw. Conan and a few of the kids love to throw these pillows at each other. Well I decided that since these pillows are hardly ever going to be used for decorative purposes, I did not want to spend a ton of money on them. So I set off to my local thrift store. I found this beauty for $1.50.

Because I have already used up my crafting budget for the month, I decided that I would use a few of the clothes that were in the pile for the thrift store to make the cover for this pillow. I cut the background from an old button down shirt that used to be Conans. I really liked this pillow here from the house of smiths and decided to try making mine like theirs:

So with that being my inspiration I took on ruffles again. I have to say it went much smoother this go around and I was done sewing the cover in under 10 minutes. I used the button part of the shirt for the back so that when you are putting it on and off the pillow form you just button and unbutton it. (I got this idea from someone else, but I cannot for the life of me remember where -sorry).

However, with just this blue it was lacking something. So I went to Thing #4's closet and pulled out a shirt that was not my favorite and a little small on him as well. I took this and made one of these flowers. I made it cutting a few squiggly circles of various sizes. Then I burned the edges to seal them - it was at this point that Thing #4 decided that he wanted that shirt back and asked me to sew it back together, that was not going to happen. I then was trying to find something to put in the middle that would complete the look but not b too fragile for throwing. When we were racking leaves I pulled out a stick and decided to cut button sizes pieces from the end. I did that and then painted them and gave them a little bit of aged look with some chalk ink. They don't quite match the blue of the pillow so I might go and change them later on, but they will do for now.

 

  And here we have the finished product - I decided that I would use a pin for the flower so that it could be removed to save it from being destroyed when the pillow is thrown.

 Linking up here: Creative Itch, Someday Crafts, Sugar and Dots, and Sew Much Ado.