A quick and easy holiday project!

OK, I feel SO behind this year with the Christmas decor! I mean we lose a week anyway, right? (Between Thanksgiving and Christmas?) And I usually have a decent start going before Thanksgiving. We got a couple trees up before our trip last week but not much else.

I’m determined to get it done this week – I’m just going to enjoy it and take my time. Have you started? Finished?

This is a fun little decor idea that I’ve shared before, but it has a Christmas twist and it’s SO easy I wanted to share it again.

In the past couple of years I’ve fallen in love with holiday-themed pillows this time of year. I just think they’re a festive addition, and all you do is toss. Toss, toss! (Name that musical.) Throw one or two on a sofa or chair and the room instantly feels Christmasy. Try it. It works.

Well the past couple of after Christmas sales I’ve picked up a few more placemats to make my favorite pillows EVER. Yes, placemats:

If you’ve been around for awhile, yes – I’m making more of these. Yes, I’m obsessed. It’s SO stinkin easy people. Even if you don’t sew I promise you can do it.

You need a placemat that’s double sided, so two pieces of fabric sewed together. A seam ripper makes easy work of making a hole in one side:

I usually open up about five or six inches, enough for me to comfortably get my hand inside to stuff it.

I use this poly-fil stuff:

You just pull clumps out and stuff it in the placemat. I used to kind of fluff up the filler before I stuffed but I don’t anymore. It take less than five minutes to get it stuffed – just make sure you get some into the corners.

I like them pretty fluffy so I use about 3/4 of that poly-fil on one. Then just sew up your hole:

Yes, I know – this involves a needle and thread. But I believe you can do this. :) It took me two minutes to whip that back together. It’s not perfect but I promise you no one will notice.

When you’re done you have a super cute, super cheap accent pillow for the holidays:

I have this whole process down to ten minutes now. :)

My pillow form (aka placemat) was $2 on clearance after the holidays and my filler was $2 and some change (with a coupon). Less than $5 for a fun little splash of Christmas!:

I think the selection of placemats and napkins is way cuter than most pillows I’ve seen. You can see here how I’ve done this with Pottery Barn linens to make much cheaper versions of their pillows.

And last year I used one of their placemats to knock off one of my favorite holiday pillows from Pottery Barn too:

SO much cheaper!

There you go – I may have a bit of a problem (I shop the linens section more than the pillow section), but it’s so much cheaper! Whoot! Have you tried this little trick?

P.S. My friend Kari at Ucreate had me over at her place to share a Christmas ornament craft. See what I came up with here!