Turning Shirts into Pillow Covers

An embarrassingly long time ago, I posted a thrift shop haul with a couple of button-up shirts from the 4th Ave Salvation Army and coyly teased that I was going to be undertaking a project with them soon.

Well that was over 2 months ago, sooo.... the actual definition of the word "soon" can go eff itself.

The important thing is that we're here together now with this project that I finally completed - turning a couple of thrifted button up shirts into small pillow covers. Best part:  No sewing skills or sewing machine needed!

When I saw this floral shirt on the rack in Salvay earlier this summer, its bright blue coloring and seemingly unworn print really stood out to me. Knowing that the shape and fit were nottt cute for actually wearing (it even had shoulder pads, for god's sake), it struck me as a perfect shirt to grab and use as a pillowcase for one of the two Ikea pillows that were back at my apartment, waiting to be covered.

Then I spotted the striped top and it was just bright and new-looking enough to convince me that it would be a good buddy for the floral shirt. Thus, my two future pillow covers were purchased and brought home to..... chill for a couple of months until I finally got around to doing anything with them.

Here's what I used to turn my shirts into pillow covers:

- two kråkris pillows from Ikea ($1.99 each)

- two complementing button-up shirts from Salvation Army ($5.99 each)

- fabric glue (I used Aleene's Fabric Fusion, 2 pens in a package for $5.99 from Michael's)

- scissors

- ruler (optional)

- pins (optional)

I ended up making each pillow cover differently - you learn as you go, after all! Or I do anyway, since I was almost entirely wingin' it. #IDoWhatIWant. Here's how I made the first one:

Step 1: Separate the bottom half of the shirt from the sleeves/collar half of the shirt by cutting across from about armpit-to-armpit. You can use your ruler here if you want to make sure your lines are extra straight, but they don't really have to be. Depending on the size of your pillow, you may need to cut higher up on the shirt to include more of the "chest/upper back" area. Unbuttoned, this will leave you with a long rectangle of fabric:

Step 2: Fold over and glue all four of the rectangle's rough edges to form pretty hems:

Step 3: Once all 4 sides of your rectangle have prettier hems, spread the fabric out length-wise - patterned side down/hem sides up - and lay your pillow into the center. Fold the left side's hem over the pillow, lining the button holes up in the center of the pillow:

You can pin the top and bottom hems together if you'd like - it may make the next glueing step easier or less messy for you:

Step 4: From here (focusing for now on just the left half of the fabric), pipe a line of fabric glue onto the bottom hem of the side that's closest to you, and then press the top and bottom hems together to seal the layers. Repeat this on the side of the pillow that's further from you. This should leave the entire left half of your pillow sealed into the case (as sort-of shown in the picture below Step 3).

Step 5: Repeat Steps 3 and 4 with the right side of your pillowcase fabric - making sure that your buttons line up with your button holes in the center of the pillow. 

And voila! Now you've essentially glued your pillow INTO your pillowcase, with the ability to unbutton the fabric to take the pillow out if you ever want to re-cover it or wash your pillowcase.

So that's how I did the first one... but I found a slightly easier way to make the second one. So I do hope you've read this far ;)

Step 1: With your shirt still buttoned, lay out your shirt flat, buttons side up. Cut across the chest of the shirt through both layers, approximately armpit to armpit. Keep the shirt buttoned together for all of the following steps.

Step 2: Separate the front of the shirt from the back of the shirt by cutting upwards along both of the side seams.  

Step 3: Create pretty hems on all four sides of both your top and bottom pieces of fabric by folding over the edges and glueing them with your fabric glue. Check as you go to make sure you're not making your fabric too small to cover your pillow!

Step 4: Lay out the bottom half of the shirt, patterned side down, and place your pillow into the center. Now lay the top half of the shirt atop your pillow, patterned side up, and make sure your buttons are straight down the center of the pillow.

Step 5: Begin glueing all the edges together, until your pillow is once again glued into the fabric with the ability to unbutton the fabric to remove the pillow. I took breaks between glueing each side, to give the glue time to dry and strengthen.

And there you have it! A totally bootleg but effective way to make your own pillow covers using some button up shirts!

So now when you see a shirt with pretty fabric or a cool pattern, but a terrible cut/fit, you can totally buy it and make your pillow wear it instead. Hoozah!

Have you ever made your own pillow cover? Are there any shirts you've been eyeing at thrift stores that would be great for this project? Let me know if you give it a try ~> you can tweet me a picture at @akaBailey!

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{Linking up at Funday Monday, Tell Us Tuesday, Craft Frenzy Friday,  The DIY'ers, That DIY Party, and What I Learned Wednesdays}

Deece Purch: A $20 Thrifted Chair

David and I did a tremendous amount of paring down of our furniture when we moved from Massachusetts to Oregon last year. We went from having a couch, coffee table and living room chair to just having a loveseat couch... and a Tucker Tote covered in blankets for an ottoman. Normally we don't do too much entertaining at home, so our lack of seating wasn't doing much harm. It was just making our living room look pretty sparse. But when my sister came to visit a couple of weeks ago and we didn't have enough seating for three people in our living room, it was pretty obvious we needed to add a chair to the room.

Now we've got more company heading our way - Dave's brother is coming for a visit this week, all zee way from Florida - so there was some urgency to finding the right chair at the right price to add to our living room. We've been dreading making the trek to Ikea in Richmond, because it's a real pain in the ass to get there and then you have to actually deal with Ikea once you arrive! #Oy.

So when I found thissss little lady at the Salvation Army on 4th Ave for $19.99, I knew it needed to be ours... immediately:

We've actually contemplated buying this exact same chair from Ikea before. It's called the Pello and it normally sells for $60. The one I found in Salvay wasn't perfect... but it was damn close to it!!

There were just a few rogue spots in the white fabric of the chair...

... plus a couple minor knicks and marks on the wooden frame:

I checked the entire chair to make sure that the white fabric cover was removable, so that I'd be able to bleach it and wash it easily. Seeing that the cover would be really easy to remove and wash, I was sold.

.  thanks be to gloria  .

Not long afterwards, the chair was home in my living room! All I had to do was unzip the cover in a few places to remove the 4 different cushions, spray the whole cover with bleach water, throw it into the washing machine, and then let it air dry. It came out perfectly! I used some regular kitchen cleaner and a soft cloth to clean the wooden frame, removing all of the random marks and scuffs on it. Honestly, it looks pretty damn close to new, if you ask me! To boot, it was $40 less than it would have been at Ikea PLUS it took us less than 10 minutes to get to the Salvay with our car, load the chair in, and bring it home. You can't beat that!

Next on the "furniture" agenda is to buy me a new desk that I can use as a crafting/collage-making surface. We also need a real ottoman, though the Tucker Tote is really classing up the joint...

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Haulin' in the USA!

So I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that Vancouver is el spensivo. Shet costs mad jobros here. AKA... hide your Nicks, hide your Joes and hide your Kevins 'cause they snatchin' up all the jobros round here. Basic toiletries, bread, eggs, turkey, face wash... you name it, they're selling it here for $3 more than it is in the US, plus their approximately 12% sales tax. All those extra jobros add up mighty quick!

It was obvious fairly soon after we got here that we'd need to make some trips to the States to do some serious bulk shopping for non-perishables.

I'm very pleased to report that we went to town at both a Target and an Ikea when we were back in Portland for Thanksgiving this past week/weekend. (Not to mention a couple of those expensive thrift stores that I love to hate... Peer pressure.)

On Saturday we ate breakfast at Broder in Portland (I had the Lost Eggs and Dave had the Solstice Bord) and then headed to Target to brave the Black Friday weekend shopping crowds. It was pretty busy there, but it could have been much worse. After only losing one another once, we ended up leaving Target with:

• 4 jars of pasta sauce ($1 each - should have bought way more!!)
• different kinds of pasta
• Annie's mac 'n cheese
• 20 hangers
• huge bottle of olive oil
• big jar of mayonnaise
• dijon mustard
• 2 boxes of chicken broth
• tons of canned beans
• "  "  "   tomato soup
• "  "  "   canned tomatoes
• plenty of taco seasoning (we like tacos)
• toilet paper
• paper towels
• cereal (you wouldn't believe how expensive cereal is in Vancouver)
• big bottle of ketchup
• coffee
• tshirt/socks/boxers for David
• ample face wash/face scrub for meee
• some nail polish (couldn't help it)
• a new blush brush (vital)
• soap (Dove Cucumber and Green Tea, IFYEWMUSTKNOW)
• Q-tips
• a plastic set of drawers
• Christmas lights
• Rubbermaid plastic food containers
• a REAL vacuum!
• some sort of Sony stereo system thing for Dave's birthday
• almonds
• peanuts

And since Target and Ikea are practically on top of each other, we scooted over to Ye Olde Swedish Home Furnishings Mega-Store for some goodies and meatballs. Just kidding about the meatball part. We had very specific things we needed to get there, so we did the fastest walk through Ikea that anyone has ever done. We left with only a few more items than we intended to get, but still kept things reasonable:

• a new end table (now the end table on the left side of our couch MATCHES the end table on the right side of our couch! #GrownUpSuccess)
• photo frames - if you need smallish picture frames, Ikea's are only $1.99-$3.99)
• a little shelf for plants in our living room
• welcome mat
• wall hangers for coats
• cutting board
• plastic food containers
• miscellaneous storage boxes

I love that everything at Ikea is sold inside of a tiny box. Does it remind anyone else of a pop-up book when the furniture items get put together and are suddenly WAY larger than their itty bitty boxes?

Needless to say, with our Kia totally packed full of completely useful things, I was feeling incredibly self-satisfied. I couldn't wait to bring it all home and spread it out on our living room floor and admire all of it and snap a picture... which I did as soon as we got back to Vancouver:

 

 

.  the one on the left is new, isn't that exciting?  .

.  new ikea piece! don't mind our sad-looking rose plant . 

. new tiny ikea end table . 

It wasn't all work and no play... I snagged these animal-printed goodies from a Buffalo Exchange in Portland as well:

.  i swear that "animal print cardigan" was on my list! $14.50 for a used cardigan, ay yi yi .

.  this was on my list too - animal print scarf, $8 . 

All said and done, we spent a chunk of money on all of this... but I know that it's so much less than we would have spent on the same amount of stuff here in Vancouver. We may eventually get ourselves a Costco membership and use it over the border in Washington, but I'm not entirely convinced that Costco is less expensive. We'll check it out and decide. Let me know if you have any spectacular bulk purchasing advice!