My husband and I are slowly, but surely transforming our tiny, bare guest room/office. We live in a two-bedroom apartment and since we moved here in October, I’ve been making each room our own. Most of the rooms in the apartment are at least at an acceptable level. All except that boring guest room/office. We finally got the mattress for the room, and I got this awesome ikat quilt for $40 at TJ Maxx. The problem I’m beginning to tackle today is the fact that we have no pillows. Not even one. I guess that’s a slight exaggeration. We do have one. One crappy, ugly pillow I got on clearance for a few bucks. So, what should I do? Transform it!
I’ve seen a bunch of cute petal pillows all in different colors, materials, and patterns. They all looked super easy to make, so I decided to make my own. I want to have a few pops of gold in the guest room/office, so I decided to make my first pillow a gold petal pillow. Here are the materials:
A pillow (a cheap or ugly pillow or you can make your own entirely)
Fabric (make sure it gets a pretty clean edge when cut and doesn’t fray)
Hot glue gun & Glue sticks
Needle and thread (OPTIONAL- if hot glue doesn’t work for your fabric or you just prefer sewing the petals on instead)
Scissors (sharp ones that won’t just fray your fabric)
Pencil
Ruler (OPTIONAL- if you want to trace grid lines onto your pillow)
Card-stock or other scrap paper (Only used for tracing)
Total Cost: $3-$4
I’m only including the cost of the fabric and a couple glue sticks because I had everything else (including the pillow I bought a year ago). Fabric cost will vary based on what you choose.
*TIP: Iron your fabric first. I decided to be lazy and not iron, so you can see wrinkles in some of my petals on the finished pillow.
Step 1:
Cut a little piece of fabric and hot glue it to another little piece of fabric. This is just to test the glue on your fabric. If it looks good and attaches well, hot glue will work for this project. If not, you will have to stitch your petals onto the pillow using needle and thread.
Step 2:
Select the size and shape you want your petals to be. Draw it out on a piece of card-stock or whatever paper you have on hand. You may want to fold your paper in half and cut the shape you want so that your petal is symmetrical. Trace the petals onto your fabric. Use pencil for this step so you can erase it if it is visible. I recommend tracing it onto the back of your fabric so there’s no fear of the markings being visible on your pillow.
Step 3:
Cut out your petals. I used 240 petals for my small rectangular pillow. You can try stacking layers of your fabric and cutting a few petals at a time. Be sure to pin the fabric if you’re doing this. Not all types of fabric are good for cutting several layers so you might just have to cut them out one at a time. I was able to cut four layers at a time after I bought some sharp new scissors.
Step 4 (Optional):
If you want to make sure your petals are always the same distance apart, trace out grid lines or that measure where you will place your petals. Make sure the distance between lines is the same on each side. The distance will vary based on how large your petals are and how much you want your petals to overlap. I decided to just eyeball mine.
Step 5:
Glue petals onto your pillow. I put a V shape of hot glue on the pillow, then stuck the petal onto it. Start with one petal in a corner. Continue adding petals in a line. Make sure the petals overlap so you don’t see any of the pillow you’re covering. Continue with this step until you’re done. I used a bit of extra glue on my edge petals to make sure they will always cover the original pillow pattern. When you’re done, you may need to add a few dots of glue here and there to looser petals.
Step 6: Marvel at your beautiful new pillow and give yourself a pat on the back for making something that would have cost $30 at a department store!
Additional Ideas: Shape your petals more like leaves or circles, try it with felt, vary the color of your petals, cover the back of the pillow as well as the front, use a fish scale pattern with parallel lines of scales coming from the top of the pillow, try big petals or very small petals, start your petals at the center and radiate outward in a rose-like spiral.
DIY in Design 