St. Patrick’s Day Crafts: How To Make An Easy Throw Pillow

Valentine’s Day has passed and do you know what that means?? (asked the Irish redhead).  It means it’s time to get ready for St. Patrick’s Day with some GREEN inspiration starting with the first of several easy St. Patrick’s Day Crafts – a fun throw pillow!

Now I am not rushing the holidays here.  I will display my St. Patricks Day crafts and decorations in March (as every proper Irish Gal should)  ;)  but I do know that YOU need time to plan ahead for these things and it’s my job to make sure that you are prepared.  Well, ok.  It’s my job to make sure that you save as much money as possible on these ideas, so this way you can use a craft store coupon to get your fabric at the lowest price possible.  Capiche?  Oh wait, that’s Italian…

I love decorating for the holidays and the kids really like it too.  Well actually The Teenager is pretty oblivious to it all, but that’s ok.  When he goes off to college this Fall I am going to turn his bedroom into “Craft Central Station”.  But we’ll just keep that little nugget of information between us for now, K?  ;)

So here’s the pillow.  As always, I am making an envelope / sham style pillow cover because I really like to be able to change out my throw pillows with each holiday.  Otherwise, I would have a GAZILLION throw pillows and just where would I put them all??  (if you thought “The Teenagers room”, you just earned extra points in my book).

This is super simple and inexpensive to make and you can use whatever fabric you find at a craft store or that you already have.   I am using a 15″ x 15″ pillow form that I already had and I got the fabric using coupons at at JoAnn and I still have left over fabric and will be making some other projects with that, so this pillow cover cost me less than $5!!

I used three pieces of  fabric.

• One for the front: 16″ x 16″
• Two for the envelope overlapping back: 16″ x 12″ and 16″ x 10″.

The extra inch gives me room for error the seams.

I used a 4 leaf clover template (included below) to trace and cut out a shamrock for the center of the pillow.

Pinned that to the front piece of fabric…

Is it OCD (Over-Thinking-It  Claire Disorder) that I like my straight pins to match the project??  I think not.

Then I used a zig zag stitch on my sewing machine to attach the shamrock.

You can really use whichever stitch you like. This pillow cover can be made by hand if you don’t own a sewing machine.  It took me a little less than an hour to make so, without a machine, I would guess it would take a 2-3 hours having to hand stitch the shamrock and sides.  Good excuse to just make some popcorn and put on your fave show and sew!

I added a button by hand to the center of the shamrock.  Points for extra cuteness.

For the back:  I took BOTH rectangles and sewed a standard two fold hem on one long side of each so now it’s time to assemble all three pieces.

I placed the front piece of fabric finished side up, and took the larger back piece, finished side down, hem at the bottom, and aligned it with the top of the front piece.  Last layer – I took the smaller back piece and placed it finished side down, hem at the top and aligned it with the bottom of the front piece.  This way the two back pieces overlap.

If you take a look at  my “12 Days of Christmas Pillow”  this will be a great reference too.

I pinned all four sides along the perimeter and used a zig zag stich around the entire perimeter as this will prevent fraying.  Very important!  If you are making this by hand, you will want to use pinking shears to cut your fabric and maybe iron on some strips of interfacing (from the craft store) along all of the edges.  Interfacing is super cheap and comes in ribbon like rolls too.

I then turned it right side out, inserted my pillow and done!!

Did I mention that I am NOT a professional seamstress?  Well now you know.  Sure there are a few imperfections and that’s okay.  It’s “perfectly imperfect”.  Like me.

Do you think The Teenager will notice??  ;)

Here’s the 4 Leaf Clover template – right click, save and print:

I love this little piece of St. Patricks Day fun and I hope you will find a little time to “get your craft on” and try this project too. And, if you love all things Irish,   don’t miss my Irish Steak & Mushroom Pie recipe!

If you have other budget friendly craft ideas (including St.Patricks Day craft ideas for kids!), I definitely want to hear about them so please comment below!

xoxo,
Claire

Linking up here:

Live Laugh Rowe, Liz Marie Blog, Too Much Time, The Frugal Girls, Tidy Mom, I Should Be Mopping The Floor, Alderberry Hill, The NY Melrose Family, Smart Schoolhouse, I Gotta Create, Designed Decor, Night Owl Blog, Five Days Five Ways, Best Blog Recipes, DIY Showoff

Tagged as: Irish Decor, St Pattys Day Crafts, St. Patricks Day Pillow