Project Nursery: Plush Pillows

       Spring has arrived in Tahoe. That means glorious sunshine and no crowds. The lake looks oh-so-tempting, dogs are frolicking, bikes emerge, walking paths are cleared and its silent outside. Spring and Fall are when we get Tahoe back. No crowds. No tourists. No traffic. Its one of our favorite times here. I feel a bit guilty for spending any time inside with this amazing weather outside, but projects need to get done. 

Luckily, I did get outside this weekend with Blue for some long walks. Its not bad waking up to this.

or this

or this

       But back at the house I had projects waiting for me. This week I received everything in the mail that I needed to create my mobile for the nursery. Look at this beautiful little package of felt that I received from a seller on etsy. 

       Yes, thats felt people. Felt. No it isn't first grade craft hour. This felt will soon be turned into a mobile. I was able to hand pick the colors and they arrived looking oh-so-inviting. I wanted to jump in immediately but needed to wait until I had some weekend freetime. 

       This Saturday I also worked some pillow magic. And for very little cash. 

Here's what I started with:

      Fabric scraps. Lots of fabric scraps left over from other nursery projects. While these scraps are nice to look at and Jon loves it when my craft supplies pile up all over the house, I figured I'd put them to work. Now, before this weekend I had never made a pillow. Not-a-one. But I figured the process must be pretty basic. 

Here' just a sampling of one of the fabrics that I was working with. 

       I had bought this fabric for another nursery project originally but the color was a bit brighter then I had intended. And behind it, that's some white backing that I recently picked up at the fabric store, with this project in mind. 

       Well, making pillows proved to be very simple and took hardly any time at all. 

And remember these ugly pillow hand-me-downs that I ripped the stuffing out of:

Well, I used the remaining stuffing to fill these pillows. 

Drumroll please....here's what I ended up with.

and here they are... ready for the babies arrival.

I'm happy with the outcome and the fact that it didn't put a dent in our budget. The white backing cost me about $10.00 and I got not 1, not 2, not 3, but 6 pillows out of it so far. And there's one more in the works today...