Easy Holiday Accent Pillow Slipcovers Customized For A Gift Or For Your Home

My favorite gifts to give are the ones I make myself. I enjoy personalizing them for the recipient and making something that is functional.  In doing so it has encouraged me, over the years, to sharpen my sewing skills and learn new crafts.

This year I decided to make some holiday accent pillow covers and give them as gifts to a few of my family members for Christmas. I enjoy having seasonal slipcovers that can be changed along with the seasons. Slipcovers take up much less space then pillows so they are much easier to store.

Here are the two pieces of precut fabric I found this year at Joann’s Fabrics.  Each were one square yard and $5.00 each.

• Did I also mention homemade gifts can be very affordable:)

For these pillows I used scissors, a roll cutter, pins, a hard ruler and zippers that matched the pillow fabric.

One yard of fabric was enough to make two 14″ pillows with zipper enclosures. I also came across this beautiful grey snowball fringe that I thought would look perfect around the borders of the pillows. This was a bit more expensive at $4.99 a yard. Though it wasn’t more money per yard, I did need two yards to complete two pillows.

I pinned the snowball garland around the perimeter of the front piece on the right side then sewed it in place.

In the past I stayed away from making anything with zippers. Now that I learned how to install them, I will definitely be trying my hand at other projects that include them. It’ SOOOO much easier then I thought it would be!

Fabric cuts are as follows:

• I cut the front piece of pillow fabric to a 15″ x 15″ square.
• The back is two pieces: 1 piece 15″ across x 14″ up and down and 1 piece 15″ across and 3″ up and down.
• Cut these pieces of fabric to fit the size pillow inserts you plan on using.

Iron a half inch seam on one edge of both pieces back pieces. The zipper is going to be placed in between these two seams.

• I chose not to put the zipper at the very bottom where the snowball fringe is being placed so the zipper wouldn’t getting caught in the extra thickness of the fabrics.  The idea for this zipper placement came from the blog; www.thediymommy.com.

On either side of the zipper, sew a one inch piece of fabric directly to the zipper to conceal the ends and act as a zipper stop.  One vertical line of stitching is all that’s needed.

Pin the zipper to the right side of the two pieces with the pull tab on the same side as the right sides of the fabric.

Sew, using a zipper foot, along both sides of the zipper.

Now that your zipper is sewed in place, unzip the zipper approximately halfway.

To complete the pillow:

• Place the front piece of pillow fabric, with the sewn on snowball fringe, centered on top of the back piece with the attached zipper.
• MAKE SURE THESE TWO PIECES ARE RIGHT SIDES FACING EACH OTHER
• Pin them together making sure both front and back pieces of fabric and the snowball fringe are included.
• Sew all three layers together. (Leaving the zipper partly open will ensure you will be able the turn the pillow right side out.

I love the way these came out! How beautiful is that fabric with that fringe:)

Thank you for stopping by and please reach out with any questions.

Roni♥