DIY World Map Pillows

You may have seen our travel page - we love to travel and have been really lucky to share some unbelievable experiences together over the past few years. This year, on the other hand, has been all about planning for the house, and we've been trying to limit our spending (which really isn't fun!). Despite the fact that we'll be taking a hiatus from any serious traveling for a while, we still want our love of traveling to be reflected in our house, and I decided to make some world map pillows for the window seat in our study (not that we've built the window seat yet... or the house with the study... I might be a little over-eager here).

I got the inspiration for the travel theme based on this awesome scratch-off-where-you've-been map that my hubby surprised me with a while back:

Isn't that cool?? I had never seen one of these before, so I was pretty excited when it randomly showed up at our door one day. (If you're interested - if you Google 'scratch map', you should see a bunch of options where you can buy one. The size was unusual (32x23), but by cutting it down a bit, I was able to make a cheap, standard size frame work well enough.) It's currently hanging in our sunroom, and I was thinking that it would be perfect in the study when we move.

I had also decided I want to build a window seat with a comfy cushion and lots of pillows in the study. Then I saw these pillows on Pinterest - how perfect!! (The pin link I had didn't work but after Googling them, it looks like they're from MyBeardedPigeon on Etsy).













I'm a pretty awful seamstress, but throw pillows are actually one of the few things I've made in the past, so I knew I could handle sewing together two squares and shoving in some stuffing. I've been away from sewing for a while until recently - I actually thought my husband broke my sewing machine making this super thick Cap'n Crunch hat for Halloween (totally worth it though - he was an awesome Cap'n!).

I had tried to fix my machine a couple of times to no avail, then stuck it in a closet for years (4 years to be exact - I told you I don't sew much!). Now that I've got DIY projects on the brain again, I thought it was time to either fix it or give it away and buy a new one, and somehow, it miraculously works again - hooray!

Step 1 was to buy some fabric. I decided on this one. I liked the vintage look of it, that it's got some color but is still fairly neutral (since I don't have a color scheme picked for the room yet), and that the price wasn't bad at $8.75/yd. (also I ordered 2 yards, and they sent me well over 3 - I think I like Fashion Fabrics Club!). I was hoping the print would be larger though (maybe like a hemisphere per pillow), but it's actually fairly small and several 'worlds' fit on each pillow - I wasn't too excited about that. The Pinterest pillows are definitely a lot more fun, but I still think these will be nice for a study (and after close examination of the fabric, Aria decided she liked it too and didn't want to get off of it).

Materials (for two 18x18 pillows and one 12x20 pillow):

• 2 yards of fabric 
• 2 12-oz bags of stuffing
• Sewing machine/thread/needles

Total cost: About $25 for 3 pillows including shipping costs

I didn't do anything special with these - they're just your basic throw pillow. If you've never made them before, all you do is cut out two squares (or rectangles) slightly larger than you want your pillows to be, pin them together inside out and mark out where you'll sew, then sew around the whole thing except for the last couple of inches (plan it so this open bit is on the bottom of your pillow). Use that little hole to turn the pillow right side out, and then to put in your stuffing. Once it's as stuffed as you want it to be, then you can sew up the last couple of inches by hand.

Here's how mine turned out (and rather than sadly sitting on the floor alone, picture them on a long window seat with a bunch of other pillows):