It has been cold and rainy all weekend, but yesterday there was some clearing and I decided we needed to get out…to Ikea!  I could walk around Ikea all day long and it still wouldn’t be long enough.  You either love Ikea or you hate it.  Obviously, I fall into the the love category.  My favorite area is the “as is” room.  Not all Ikeas have them, but if you do have one at your store go and dig through all the crap in the bins.  I ALWAYS find good stuff in there and it’s never more than $3.

Yesterday as I was wandering around the store, I came across a display of pillows, on sale for $.99 each.  I have been wanting to make pillow mats for the kids – basically just pillowcases sewn together with the pillows inside.  This was a perfect find because I can usually find cheap pillows, but they still may be about $3 a piece and I need at least 8 pillows.  Suddenly my little project is starting to add up, but pillows for under $1?  I think I do!

These may not be the best pillows for sleeping, but they are perfect for the mats.

I had some pillowcases at home that I was going to attempt to make some little dresses or nightgowns for Kamryn, but I thought maybe they would be better suited for this project.  However, I made a wonderful discovery at my stop at the “As Is” room on my way out of Ikea.  The pillowcase gods were shining down on me and I found 8 pillowcases in the big bin, two of which have really cute print on them.

I wanted these to be the “head” of the pillow mat and then the other pillowcase could be random.  I sewed all the cases together and here is the end result.  There are two separate mats, but they are laying side by side, per Rory’s request so he could jump all over them.

They are pretty comfortable, but I may sew the pillowcases a little closer together.  Right now the pillows barely fill out the pillowcases and I know that over time they’ll get even flatter.  I think if I sew a few inches off the width of the cases, they mats will be much fluffier for longer.

One other thing was that a few of the pillow cases were significantly longer than the rest, I sewed a new end to those cases so they were all roughly the same size.

This was really easy and good practice for a sewing novice like myself.  The total price for two pillow mats was $12.  Another place to find pillowcases on the cheap are stores like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, etc.  You can usually find some funky prints and decent quality pillowcases for no more than $4 for two cases.