Faces on Pillows

I enjoy creating pillows but not the normal “lay your head down and sleep pillow.” Last week I shared a “hug a bear pillow” I created for a special friend from one of her awesome photographs. Today I’m sharing how to make Faces on Pillows which become a lasting memory. Here is the blog I wrote about the bear hugging pillow if you missed it. http://themarthareview.com/hug-a-bear/

When my now 21 year old grandson was about three years old he had a fuzzy sweatshirt that he lived in! It was bright orange and where ever Zac went so did his sweatshirt. There came a time when the long sleeves were almost up to his elbows and the sweatshirt fit him like a sausage casing. Yes it was time to buy him a new one. But Zac had other ideas he loved this sweatshirt and wanted to keep it. We looked everywhere to find one similar but no luck.

I finally found a black with orange Harley non fuzzy sweatshirt that went with his Harley themed room. He reluctantly gave up is to tiny fuzzy sweatshirt for a big boy one.

That’s when the idea came to me….. I’ll make him a pillow out of his sweatshirt but not just an ordinary pillow, I’ll put his head in the hood! Well, let me rephrase that, I didn’t actually put his head in the hood, I printed a close-up picture of Zac on the special fabric sheet and stitched that around the hood. I also adding the front of a t-shirt under the sweatshirt. Next I stitched the cuffs closed, stuffed the body with pillow batting and stitched that up.

The next time Zac came over to visit, the pillow was sitting upstairs in the rocking chair waiting for him!

After creating Zac I decided to do the same for his sisters. They are fun to come up with a special outfit they wore that will be a lasting memory.

Football Memory Pillows

Two of my other grandsons were both on the football team when they were in school. When Danny, the younger one got on a team, he wanted to follow his older brother and get the same number. It worked out and I made them each a football pillow with their name and number on it. They are now 32 and 24 years old but still have their football memory pillows.

New Idea Came to Mind!

This was an afterthought after writing about creating pillows. My great granddaughter loves butterflies. Everytime Lia see anything with a butterfly she runs over and says “fyy-fyy”. Mommy and I started looking through the stores to find a tiny stuffed “fyy-fyy” she could carry around but none were around. Then I started looking online but said to myself, “YOU AREN’T GOING TO BUY A FYY-FYY PILLOW WHEN YOU CAN MAKE YOU, ARE YOU?” So last night while sleeping I came up with a plan.

This morning I grabbed a few scraps of Minky fur plus a few different fabrics with butterflies, cut them in the shape of a butterfly and stitched them together. I added a small amount of pillow batting, stitched the center and tied a piece of ribbon around it. I left tails on the ribbon to look like the butterfly’s antennas!

When Lia and mommy got to our house, Lia’s little face lit up like a lightbulb when she saw her new little “fyy-fyy” and gave it a big hug.

Of course this got Alex and me thinking about our Mama’s Minky blankets we make…..we can add little stuffed butterflies and call them Minky cuddlers!

This is how we come up with ideas for memory pillows, we never really plan anything, they just pop in our heads and of course Lia will now be the inspector of the pillows also!

This is a blog I wrote about the birth of Mama’s Minkys and Lia the Minky inspector….. http://themarthareview.com/lovable-minkys/