Valentine Pillow Tutorial To Warm Your Heart

These pillows make my heart go pitter-pat.

I've been on a pillow making mission this week.  My heart's felt full and with Valentines Day coming on like a freight train, I thought it was time to make so upcyled pillows.

You know this little old internet world is amazing.  I was inspired to make this pillow from seeing the cute pillow Jenny made over at Days of Chalk and Chocolate.  Jenny was inspired by this post that Roeshel over at diyshowoff wrote a few years ago.  Amazingly enough I've had that post in the back of my head for years, intending on creating sharpie drop cloth curtains myself.  I have a couple of songs picked out but with "8" windows I haven't come up with that much fabric or drop cloth yet.  Maybe soon.

Pillows are one of the easiest things a some can sew for a first time project.  You can even make pillows with out sewing at all.  If you have a hot glue gun and a square piece of fabric, you can make a pillow.

You can make a pillow out of anything.  Take my script pillow.  I had an old patio pillow with a faded giraffe print. I knew I wanted this to be a script print pillow but I didn't have any script fabric.  No biggie, I dug through my stash of fabric and I found some way too thin cotton.  Too thin - because you could see the giraffe print through it. That wouldn't do or would it?  Sure it would!  I just doubled it up so you couldn't see through it.

Easy DIY Instructions:

• To start, lay your pillow on top of the fabric and cut leaving a little room on all sides for a seam allowance. 
• I searched the internet for the lyrics to my favorite classic love song, Moon River. Using a sharpie I just free handed them onto the fabric. 
• Lay right sides facing together and sew or glue the edges together, being sure to leave an opening to stuff your pillow in.  After stitching a 4/8" to 5/8" seam, trim the seams and clip corners diagonally.  
• Turn right-side-out and add your pillow form.  Hand stitch or glue opening closed. 
• Cut 2 hearts out of paper, just like we did in grade school by folding the paper in half.  Draw 1/2 a heart and cut out.
• Trace hearts on to a piece of felt in the colors of your choice.
• Blanket stitch with embroidery thread using 3 strands of floss.  I used black because I thought it would tie in the black script.  For the smaller white heart I only used 2 strands and didn't attach the small heart to the bigger one at the top so I could slip in a little love note.  

Isn't my copy of a vintage french postcard cute!

If you'd like to learn how to do the simple blanket stitch you can watch this video from Tammy Hallam.

*Update:  You can see my other Valentine pillow HERE.

Here's a little trivia on why I like the song and is origin:

This song reminds me of when Neil and I dated - it was old then.  Plus it was written by the great, late Johnny Mercer of Savannah, Georgia while reminiscing about the days of his youth, and the bright moon over the Savannah river.

Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics and Henry Mancini wrote the music for Audrey Hepburn to sing in the 1961 Academy Award Winning Breakfast At Tiffany's. And of course it was Andy Williams theme song.  Love it!

I hope you enjoyed the song and my little Valentine pillow tutorial.  Come back tomorrow and see what surprising materials I used for my other 2 pillows.

Hugs Y'all...

I will be your God throughout your lifetime - until your hair is white with age.  I made you and I will care for you.  I will carry you along and save you.

                                                                ~ Isaiah 46:4