Monday Made It: T-Shirt Pillows (Giveaway ends in 2 days)

It's Monday!  I'm loving the linky party that Tara hosts over at 4th Grade Frolics!  My project this week needed to be completely free.  I think I've gotten a little carried away with what I think that I need in the classroom, rather than what I actually need... needless to say, I NEED to start budgeting...  

This week since I've done so many practical things (Teacher Binder, Friday Folders, Rainbow Edit, and paperwork) I decided to raid my own kids' rooms to see what I could change around to work for my classroom library area.  I grabbed an old standard size pillow (since I get new ones for my boys every summer), 2 shirts that my son has outgrown - these were youth medium size 8, some thread, 6 pieces of velcro and I was good to go.

Step 1: Cut pillow in half down the middle. 

 This is your filler for the two pillows (only one is shown).

 

Step 2: Take a shirt and the same color thread - 

do a quick stitch on the neck hole and the 2 sleeves.

 You probably can't see it but there are my stitches. 

Yes, I did it by hand, it wasn't hard.

 Step 3: Decorate the shirt with fabric markers (like mine), use puffy paint, patches, iron on transfers, etc.  Those would have required a trip to the store and actually having to buy materials - which wasn't going to work.

Step 4: Stuff the pillow inside the shirt and use 3 velcro pieces on the bottom hem to stick it together.  One part of the velcro goes on the inside hem, then put the other part of the velcro on top of the velcro so it attaches with the sticky part up, then push the fabric down to seal it on.  I chose to do velcro on the bottom edge so I had the option of taking the pillows home from school and washing the shirts.

Step 5: Do it again with the other shirt.  See, nice and free!