Placemat pillow tutorial + my favorite Christmas vignette

Rhoda is having a Christmas vignette linky party over at Southern Hospitality and it just turns out this little area on my hearth is my favorite vignette this year.  What’s a vignette you ask?  Dictionary.com says it is “any small, pleasing picture or view.” 

I just love this little area – the bench, the pillows, the brown throw, the fresh greenery, the candlelit lantern and the tree in the background.  I wish my whole house looked this cozy!

So I thought this would be a perfect time to show you how I made the snowflake pillow you see in the front.  The pillow in the back is my DIY sweater pillow that I created back in my 31 days of Pinterest projects series.

If you didn’t guess it when I showed you my Neutral & Vintage Christmas mantel, that pillow is actually made from a placemat!  Yep, a placemat and it is soooo easy and simple to make.  Seriously you can do this in about 10 minutes.

You will need a bag of poly-fil and any placemat that you want to use.  BUT, your placemat must be a two-layered placemat.  In other words it must be 2 pieces of fabric sewn together.  Mine is white on the back and when I rub the edges in-between my fingers I can tell that it is 2 pieces of fabric sewn together.  Make sure to find a placemat with 2 pieces of fabric sewn together.  This particular placemat was $2.99 and came from Target just a few weeks ago, I don’t see it on their site but it may still be in stores.

I got the poly-fil at Hobby Lobby – $2.99 – 40% coupon = I paid $1.79 and have some left.  So this pillow cost me less than $5.00.

Take a seam ripper and open up a little bit of the seam on the bottom of the placemat.  You want a hole just big enough that you can stuff the poly-fil in.

Then start stuffing!  Make sure to get it stuffed well into the corners and plenty full.  I used about 2/3 of a 12 oz bag of poly-fil in one placemat.

Then pin closed and either sew by hand, by machine, or you could even glue with fabric glue, hot glue, or use stitch-witchery or heat’n bond tape.

I had my sewing machine out so I just fed it through real quick to close the seam up.

Fluff it a little and it is a perfect pillow!

The colors were perfect for my neutral theme this year and I can keep it out through winter too if I want.

Oh, and notice something different under the tree??  Can’t wait to show it to you and reveal my whole tree on Thursday!

But right now, I have another placemat to turn into a pillow.  I found this pillow at Kohl’s $7.99 -  60% off – additional 20% off = $2.55.  I LOVE Kohl’s prices and discounts.  It’s about to become another cheap placemat pillow

These would make great gifts as well.  And you can use any placemat, it doesn’t have to be Christmas themed.  Pick up a matching set and make some new easy pillows for your couch.

Heading over to link up at Rhoda’s vignette party!

Oh and if you are wanting a great gift idea, head over and check out Laine’s post today in our “A Homemade Christmas” series.

A wonderful gift idea if you don’t keep it and eat it all yourself after seeing her amazing pictures!

Don’t forget to come link up any homemade Christmas projects to our linky party on Friday!  I can’t wait to see what kind of decorations, food, and projects you have been working on.