Super-easy decorative pillow made from scraps

This spring I made a new faux Roman shade for my kitchen window, and I love the new look.  This particular shade I made from a tablecloth, so I had extra fabric left over.  Of course I saved the scraps--do you do that, too?



Here's a close-up of the shade:

A few days ago it occurred to me that I could use those scraps to make pillows for the new captain's chairs in the breakfast area, adding a bit of coordination between breakfast room and kitchen.  So I made them.  Out of scraps.  For free.

I just rolled up an old towel cut to size for my chair to make the innards of the pillow.  (This produces a nice firm pillow--you can use a different kind of filling to make a squishy pillow.)

I followed this tutorial for making a no-sew bolster pillow--it's really simple!

Adding a covered button to the end makes the pillow look finished.


I had the covered button kits in my stash, so my total cost for this project was $0.  Zero.  Nothing but a few minutes of my time.  It took me much longer to take the photos and write this post than it did to make the pillows!
Now the captain's chairs sport colorful little pillows that coordinate with the kitchen window treatment.  You could make much bigger bolster pillows using this same method.  I didn't want the pillows to get in the way of the person sitting in the chair, so I purposefully made them kind of skinny.

Do you have any chairs that could use a little splash of color?  Check out your fabric stash--you could be well on your way to custom-made pillows!