A fun little Mama and daughter tutorial!

A Picture Pocket Pillow

My 5 year old honey got a sewing machine from Grandma D for Christmas! She was sooo excited and has been even more excited to try it out. Well now that things have calmed down a bit we pulled out the machines yesterday and got creative. I asked her what she wanted to make and she sat there thinking and then all by her self came up with the idea of a heart pillow with a place to put a picture on front. I was shocked! And then I thought what a great tutorial lets do it!

**So first step pick out your fabric! You know you have scraps lying around use them!! I was kind of trying to convince my little dear to use some fabrics that match her pale pink and sea foam blue room but she preferred BRIGHT ORANGE AND PINK!! So that's what we did! :)

**Next choose your shape. I had some large butcher paper so I had Miss Madi draw a heart on the paper and then we pinned it to the fabric. (The fabric was folded so that we were cutting the front and back at the same time.) After your desired shape is pinned, cut it out baby!

We did our ruffle trim next. The width is up to you. Mad wanted a wider trim so we chose to cut our strips 4 inches wide. The length depends on how much ruffle you want and how much you want to gather it. I usually do the length twice as wide as the length of the original project.

**Iron your trims to have a finished edge. We ironed a half inch and then folded another half inch and ironed again. (obviously this is the long side of the trim!)

**Iron a straight stitch down your folded edge to finish it...

**And then on the unfinished edge we are going to sew a gathering stitch. Do you remember how to do a gathering stitch??? Set your stitch on your machine to the largest setting and without back stitching sew away all the way down your trim. After that is sewn grab one of the threads ( I prefer the bobbin thread) and pull. It will start to gather.

** Take your gathered trim and pin it evenly right sides together and the gathered edge matched to the edge of the pillow. Sew the trim onto the pillow using a basic straight stitch.

** For the picture pocket, I know that there is plastic fabric that you can purchase, but this project was done on a whim coming straight from miss Madi's head. He had sleeping babies to deal with so we needed to use what we had around the house! So I went to my craft cupboard and found some old scrapbook page protectors. These worked great!!

**We chose a regular 4X6 rectangle for our pocket but cut out your shape and place it on your front pillow, (the one with the trim sewn to it already) Then stitch only the sides and bottom. Leave the top opened so you can slip the picture inside. I wanted to use bright pink thread for this and a fancy flower stitch but Madi had her mind set on orange thread and a straight stitch. I did the zig zag anyways thinking she wouldn't notice or care but OOHHHH she did! And she wasn't too happy. I personally like the zig zag better though I think it just adds a little more detail! :)

**Next we took the second heart and placed it on top of the heart that already had the trim and pocket sewn to it. With right sides together we pinned the edges all around to keep it in place. Then I started at the bottom and sewed a basic normal stitch all the way around the heart. Don't forget to leave an opening to stuff the pillow. I think I left about a 4 inch opening.

**Turn it right side out and then STUFF the heck out of it!

After it is stuffed don't forget to stitch back up your stuffing opening and then add a picture. Mad's original idea for the pillow was for a picture of her and a friend, but when we finished, she decided she wanted to put a picture of a mermaid that she had drawn. As you can see there are no pics of the mermaid on here because out of the 22 that she drew for her pillow NOT ONE of them were just right for HER pillow! She kept drawing and throwing pics away. While I was waiting for her to draw just the right one. I made the I heart Madi sign and she liked that best and has kept that in!

This was such a fun easy project to do with my 5 year old! I love that it was a sewing lesson for her and a great love note spot for me! I also think this would be such a cute valentine present for little friends! You could make little heart pillows and then put your valentine right in front. But mostly I LOVE that my Madi thought of this on her own! I have seen a note pillows before but Madi hasn't so this was really fun for me to watch her be creative and design!