The Plushy Pillow

I'm bringing out one of  our favorite crafts from art camp, the plushy pillow. It's a great one because more than anything, it gives you a chance to do 3 important things:

1. Put favorite old T-shirts to good use
2. Use a no-sew method to create a pillow
3. Option to teach some sewing basics if desired

In art camp, we created this project using pre-cut felt squares. However, in light of the coronavirus quarantine, I thought it best to keep it simple and use household objects. Who needs extra trips to the store or packages to consider sanitizing? Our modified version uses things that you may have on hand, such as old T-shirts for the fabric. My son, Tre, had a few "old faithful" T-shirts, or as Seinfeld called them, "golden boy."

1. Old T-shirts
2. Something for stuffing (you can use Polyfil, newspaper, paper towels, gift basket shred or tissue. Really, anything soft will do... but not your valuable toilet paper.)
3. Scissors
   
4. Sharpie or chalk
   Optional items below:
   
5. Needle and thread - If you want to take this moment, you could teach a little sewing lesson, but it is not needed to complete the project. I used a kid's sewing needle for art camp and some floss thread that I had on hand, but any needle and thread will do. (If you are local and want me to drop of a little kit of some Polyfill fluff, a needle and thread, I'm happy to do that! Just let me know.)
6. Button - I enjoyed teaching Tre to sew on a button. My friends and I were just lamenting that Home Ec. class is no longer taught. I remember sewing some sweat pants as a teenager in that class. They were un-wearable, but I did learn a lot!

The first step to take is to lay out the T-shirts flat on a table and cut off the sleeves to get 2 square shapes. I did this part for Tre. The cuts weren't straight and it wasn't a perfect science, but no one was the wiser.

Tip: You may want to save the sleeves for sewing up little bean bags later.

The next step that I took was to have the kids measure in 3 to 4 inches on all sides. I was glad to remind him how to use a ruler : ). I helped by drawing a box in the middle using chalk, but a marker could work as well. This provides for a "cut line" that the fringes get cut up to.

After chalking the line, I had the kids make cuts every half-inch or so along each side. Don't let them separate the 2 pieces after cutting. I learned the hard way that it can be difficult for them to line it back up when it comes time to tie the strips.

Note: You can cut off and throw away the excess corner pieces.

Now that the cuts are made, they can tie both the top and bottom strips together along 3 of the edges. Leave one side open for filling it with stuffing.

Make sure they tie it twice so that it's in a knot and stays shut.

Now stuff the open end with whatever stuffing fluff you have on hand and tie together the ends to close up that last side.

Really anything soft will do as the filling.

Lastly, Tre sewed on the button. I explained to him to start underneath the button and go upward. He could either criss-cross to form an "X" or go from the top to the bottom hole to create 2 parallel lines like an "11" shape. He opted for the criss-cross method (shown below)

It ended up small and cuddly because we were using a shirt from Tre's pre-school days, but the bigger the shirt... the bigger the pillow.

Here are a couple of photos I want to share from this project at Camp Create. The kids learned so much sewing on the buttons in 2018. We had them pick their own colors of felt to mix and match with the different buttons. For  camp, they sewed on little pockets as well.

Special thanks to our campers who won the poster contest last summer during our weeks of art camp. Their art helped to create the front of our flyer for this year. Thank you for your creativity; Rylee, Hayden, Inese, Tre, Tristan and Lily.

We are aware that your plans for this summer are most likely in limbo. As of now, we are hopeful to proceed with our dates of June 15th - 19th or June 22nd - 26th as planned. However, if things do not rebound as quickly as anticipated, we will take one of two actions:

1. Reschedule the camp for later in the summer (possibly July or August)
2. If complete cancellation is necessary, we will take our cue from the airlines and create a credit system where your paid art camp tuition from this summer will be applied forward to one of next summer’s art camp weeks.

At this time, we are still keeping our registration open, so feel free to register without paying (and pay right before camp starts) if you’d like to reserve your child’s spot without having the financial commitment. To do so, just fill in the registration form and hit, "continue", but do not proceed through the payment portion. Your registration and spot will be saved.

If you are signed up for the newsletter, we will let you know if any plans change.  We sincerely hope that we will be able to enjoy the fun and creative activities we have planned with your children in June! 

Let us know how the project goes by tagging us on Facebook or on Instagram at: #campcreateartcamp. You can find and follow it here.

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