The Hunt for the Perfect Yellow Pillow

Be warned, I’ve been on a bit of a home decorating kick the last few days. So I have a few random home décor posts that I will be writing and posting over the next week or so.  The first of which is about my hunt for the perfect yellow pillow.

Some of you may think I’m pretty lame for obsessing about a stupid pillow when there are more important things to talk about, like poverty, world peace and how David Beckham is incredibly hot.

I can’t help it though, something gets in my head and I just get totally fixated. In this case, I decided that my house needed a happy yellow pillow (or two). It couldn’t just be ANY yellow pillow though, it had to be the perfect yellow pillow.

I found a couple options online, but they were either not exactly what I wanted or way too expensive for a stupid pillow.

I was at the point when I thought a trip to the fabric store was in order. But then when I was walking through Target an angel choir started singing (and it wasn’t just the holiday decorations that they put out in early September):

Yep, yellow napkins from Target. And the best part was that a four-pack was only $9.99! So I snapped those babies up and skipped down the aisle. No, I didn’t actually skip because I’m a grown up and typically behave well in public. I shook my booty a little, that’s all.

Anyways, since I’m sure you are just dying of curiosity on how I transformed these napkins into the pillows of my dreams I put together this lazy and half-assed tutorial.

How to Sew a Pillow Out of a Pack of Napkins:
Supplies needed: 4 pack of napkins ($10), bag o’ fluff ($8), sewing machine, pins, thread, and needle for hand sewing. Time needed: about an hour-ish, depending on how fast you are with the sewing machine and whether you need to replace the bobbin.*

Admire the pretty fabric. Decide that it’s kind of wrinkly so bust out the iron. Now a real professional gal would totally wash these before sewing them, but I skipped that part so that I could finish this project while Jack was taking a nap.

Flip the fabric so that the wrong side is out and pin it every so often to keep it from scooching around while sewing it. Make sure to put the pins horizontally, otherwise you will stab the crap out of your hand when you’re guiding the fabric through the machine.

Sew baby, sew! Remember to leave an opening big enough for your hand to fit through on one side.

When you finish sewing, take out all the pins and flip the pillows right side out to check out your handiwork. Oooh, empty pillow bags.

Grab your bag o’ stuffing and fill the pillows through your handy little hole you left (you DID leave a space, right?!). Fill them up more than you would think you’d want them to be, because they tend to squish down over time.

Last step, grab a needle and thread and sew up your access hole. You may want to go with a thread that matches the fabric, but I tend to like to finish in a contrasting color for funsies.

Yay, done! And it totally only took about 1/2 of a Jack nap time from start to finish (aka 1 hour or so). I love the finished pillows AND since I had most of the stuff on hand the project only cost me $18 total. So much better than the inspiration pillows I was drooling over.

Here’s the finished look, be prepared to oooh and ahhhh:

Love it! Did you do any super quick projects over the long weekend? Have you ever found a pack of napkins that you just couldn’t resist sewing into pillows?

*About replacing the bobbin, I don’t know why but every single time I need to replace it I end up cursing up a storm and throwing stuff around the room. I can put together Ikea furniture in a ridiculous amount of time, but the stupid sewing machine kicks my butt!