DIY No Sew Bolster Pillow Tutorial for the Birds!

Happy Friday and Happy Earth Day to you! This has been a whirlwind of a week and I just realized how quickly it literally flew by. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that I’ve had bird on the brain this week…

Every spring we experience something I like to refer to as the battle of the birds at our house. I’m just as excited as the next person to see the first happy little robin hopping about and looking for worms when the weather starts getting nicer. It’s when they incessantly attempt to build their nests in places like inside my garage and above my front porch light, that I tend to have a problem. This time of year, if I leave my garage door open for even a couple of minutes, in they swoop, looking for a nice little place to call home.

This week, my battles were with one said robin who was extremely determined – bless her little momma robin heart – to create her perfect nest directly above my front door’s porch light. I am not even underestimating when I say that I had to tear down at least 9 of her attempts at making a nest this week, much to her loud chirping displeasure. I finally resorted to hanging this crazy looking craft project kitty that my daughter created to try to scare her off.

It worked. I think it was the combination of the sparkly gold ribbon and long curly tail that did it! If it’s any consolation, I really did feel bad, but seriously robins, just find new places to build your nests and we won’t have this problem!

This bird battle must have triggered the rest of my bird encounters this week. I purchased a cute new addition from Hobby Lobby for my new gallery wall that I am creating in my family room. Do you love gallery walls as much as I do? Watch for a future post highlighting my first real attempt at one.

The bird followed me into my new spring mantle I decked out after packing away all the Easter decor recently.

And into my kitchen as well, in a cheery new hand towel, also from Hobby Lobby.

I promised a few months back that I would share with you a really easy peasy no sew pillow cover tutorial. Well guess what? The birds followed me there too! I have been holding onto this adorable vintage bird print fabric for a while now and I knew it would make an excellent pillow cover accent come springtime.

Not everyone has access to a sewing machine, nor knows the basics of a simple stitch. I consider myself really fortunate to have learned this skill from my great-grandma at a young age. If you want to read more about her amazing crafting and sewing skills, you can do that in a post I wrote here. I do wish she would have lived longer to teach me more of her incredible skill set in this area. I am not at all what I would consider an expert in this area like she was! But regardless, this pillow cover tutorial is just about as easy as they come and it involves NO SEWING! Trust me, if you can fold something in half, you can do this! If you can tie a knot, you can do this! It’s really that simple!

This particular pillow I was recovering was a large bolster pillow that sits on my couch. I was ready to change it up a bit….sound familiar? I told you I have a bit of birdbrain! The pillow itself is nice and I wanted to still be able to remove the cover in the future. Enter this simple solution.

You will need the following for this simple project:

• Fabric (amount depends on how large your pillow is)
• Elastic or rubber bands
• Safety pins (small ones work best)
• Pillow to cover

I started by laying my piece of fabric out on the floor print side facing up. Then place your pillow you want to cover right in the middle.

Since a bolster pillow is oblong in shape, I brought the long sides up to touch, much like you would wrapping a present.

Then I took 2 small pieces of white elastic (you could also use a rubber band) and wrapped  & tied them snugly around each of the short ends of the pillow.

When you’re done it should sort of look like a big piece of candy wrapped up!

Then you carefully remove the pillow and turn the cover inside right so the printed side of the fabric is facing out. You can simply tuck the “candy wrapper” ends inside the cover. Then re-insert the bolster pillow and turn it over to secure the back long side.

I used 2 small silver safety pins to secure the middle panels closed, with the safety-pin side facing inward, so only the small silver line shows. Since this side of the pillow faces the bottom of the couch anyway, you’ll never be able to see those pin lines.

And when I decide I want to change it out again with a different fabric for a different season, then it will be easy to remove the pins, slide the pillow out, take off the elastic and start all over again!

Didn’t I tell you it was easy? Doesn’t get much simpler than that! Even a birdbrain could figure it out!

I’ll leave you with this verse that God’s word gives us, “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” -Matthew 6:26 NIV

Isn’t it reassuring to know that God cares for the birds in such a way? And yet He cares for us even more, scatterbrained and all! Thank you Jesus!