I might be aging myself, but do you remember those stuffed animals made from panels of fabric? Holly Hobbie anyone? Have you noticed they have been popping up again? My boys love looking at animal encyclopedias, and I noticed some of the art is really cool. You coul dalso use clip art or photograph animals at the zoo. Any animal or anything they love would make a fun pillow. These are baby safe, nothing but a flat pillow.

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You will need:

white pillow case
printable t-shirt transfers
iron
pinking shears (scissors are ok)
sewing machine
needle and thread
fiberfill stuffing

Find bird images online or in science books and have them blown up to 8.5 by 11 inches and copied onto the t-shirt transfers in color at your local copy shop. Alternatively, I used my camera at home and took pictures of the birds. I then cropped and scaled down the image to fit on a letter size transfer and printed it at home. Either way will work. If you have editing software, you can modify and make black and white images like those trendy animal pillows that are floating around on Pinterest.  Look for images on white backgrounds; this makes cutting out the shape much easier.

Cut out your birds. Place birds color side down on your pillowcase. Be sure to space them far enough apart from each other; the pillows need seam allowances and extra white space around them.  Iron, pressing down firmly according to the directions on the transfer sheets.  Peel off backing and let cool.

Turn pillow case inside out and flatten. Set up your sewing machine. Starting at the bottom – determine a 4 inch wide flat area to stay open. Start sewing from one end and loosely follow around the picture with a straight stitch. Going slow is ok. If you end up in a small turn, stop sewing with your needle in the fabric, lift your sewing foot,  turn your fabric and put the foot down again to keep sewing. Be gradual and avoid tight turns. Think more bubble around the picture. You want a rounded pillow, not angular. Stop sewing at the other end of the predetermined opening. Repeat with remaining images on the pillowcase.

Cut out your images with pinking shears about half an inch from the seams you just sewed. Turn inside out by pushing the fabric through the opening. Stuff gradually with fill, and use a wooden spoon to press out any funny corners and to get stuffing in those areas. Add a little more stuffing than full, as it will compact a bit. Stitch the bottom closed with a needle and thread. If you are terrible at blind seams like I am,  just make the stitches small, evenly spaced and pretty. There’s no reason not to make a cute pillow because of it.

Voila. Repeat with any animal, object, letter you see fit. I am searching for larger sheets of transfer paper to make bigger pillows. Anyone know of any?

Don’t sew? Find a white pillow cover and iron images on to that. Easy right?