DIY Faux Fur Pillows!

With Fall creeping just around the corner and the weather slowly turning to the "snuggle session time", I felt I needed to add a few ferocious cuddle friends to my array of throw pillows scattered throughout the house. So why not create my very own faux fur pillows!!!

Seriously though, why do we have "decorative pillows" everywhere? The couch, my bed, my son's bed, lounge chairs, my desk chair... I probably could create another bed, just from my decorative pillows alone. Hmmm......

I haven't done a DIY in quite a while so I thought I'd share with you all how I made my very own faux fur pillows, using scraps of faux fur, a pillow case, some stuffing, and of course a needle with thread. The total cost? Well for me it was absolutely free, but I had all this stuff hanging out. If you aren't like me and have some faux fur just waiting to be used or any of the other stuff, here's the breakdown in price. 

DIY pillows: $8 for stuffing at Michaels, $2 for pillow case at Walmart

-OR-

Store bought pillows: anywhere from $3 (Target dollar section) to $20, depending on what you want

Craft Fur: $7 to $25 on Amazon

Needle and Thread: $2, found at Dollar Tree, Walmart, Target

Total:

Between $12 and $50 depending on how thrift you are and specific to your needs, for 2 faux fur pillows.

Obviously this can turn out to be a huge score or a complete waste of time for the expense. Here are a few quick tips on how to keep the budget down!

1. For stuffing, you can use from an old stuffed animal, an old blanket, scrap fabric/felt, or even old shirts. 

2. For the fur, you can go to a thrift store and use a fur coat. I've seen them for around $7. Just make sure that you can easily disassemble the pieces using a stitch ripper (found on Amazon for $4) and make sure the pattern is something you'll enjoy. Also, you don't want too many areas where the fur is matted or you won't have enough fabric. I used an old fur coat that was gifted to me years ago. I made it into a smaller vest and used the sleeves for my pillows, after taking them apart. 

3. If you have an old pillow case you don't want anymore, use that. Simply cut it in half width wise, and sew the ends. This will give you two pillows to fill. 

Now onto the tutorial! For the purposes of this tutorial, I'll be showing you how I sewed mine onto ONE side of the pillow. I like having a blank side so I can still snuggle the pillow without hair in my mouth. 

First take your your pieces of fur and pillows, and measure (however you prefer) out the amount of fabric needed. You can use the safety pins to pin down exactly how you want the fur to sit. I took apart my old vest sleeves using my stitch ripper and carefully layered the pieces how I want them to sit. It's important to make sure that when you sew on the fur, you keep all the fur laying in the same direction. If you have one section with the fur going up and the other section of fur going down, your pillow make look like it's having a bad hair day. To each their own though. 

Once you have the layout set up for how you want your fur to lay, start sewing sections together. Now for my pieces, I had certain sections that would have a thicker edge, to allow for easier sewing. Unfortunately they only had one side with this extra edge - for sewing top sections to the bottom - but the sides were merely sewed on top of each other, flattening out the fur. To combat this problem I simply overlapped the layers and used an invisible stitch (blind stitch) when sewing the top sections to the bottom section (the edges with a thicker edge) to give the illusion of a seamless blend between pieces of fur. With the side edges, I put the edges together and used a running stitch. The other side won't show the running stitch, blending the fur sections easier. 

Using these techniques (from scraps of fur) will give you mild line, but to be honest I actually like it with the lines. I feel like it gives a unique look. Eventually the lines should disappear. At least with mine, because they are only visible since this is where they stitched it before. After ruffling them out more and more, they eventually began to look less on the flat and more on the fluffy side. (Not to be confused with Gabriel Iglesias.)

If you don't really care about making the lines straight or about blending the fur pieces together as seamlessly as possible, then just go ahead and use your craft fur (or fur scraps) in chunks and go crazy. I had enough fur to make three pillows (1 was currently being used as part of a monster game my son was playing, which explains for only 2 pillows in the picture), so 1 has straight lines (they are already blending in really well), and 2 with crazy lines that I didn't take apart completely. Again, I think the look makes them unique.

Aren't they adorable?! I absolutely love the pattern and how splotchy it is. I actually think the seams make it look like a preasent as well. Seeing as how Fall and Winter (particularly Christmas) are my favorite seasons, I think they make an absolutely perfect addition to my suspicious pile of decorative pillows. 

If you love these and re-create your own, be sure to tag me in your own creations on Instagram (@thewhiterockingchair) so I can see!