A Little Christmas Project

First, I just want to say thank you to everyone for all of the fabulous ideas for Lillie's birthday party. There are so many good ones it is making it hard for me to decide. I still haven't narrowed it down yet (although I REALLY need to hurry up!) so if anyone else has any please feel free to add them!

Okay, now I know that most people think it is WAY too early to be worrying about Christmas decorating yet, but I can't help myself. I know I am very much in the minority here but I just get so excited about it! I have been a good girl and refrained from doing any decorating yet, but I have started working on some projects because with Lillie and Dear Lillie it is hard to find time for "just for fun" projects. During Lillie's nap yesterday I decided to make some pillows for our living room. I have been really wanting to get these ones from this great little Etsy shop. I think they are really well priced, knowing how much work goes into them, but with Christmas, Lillie's birthday, and a new baby on the way I couldn't really spend that on pillows that were just for one month of the year. Plus, even though I have a million pillows and pillow forms lying around, I didn't have any extra that size so I would have had to go out and buy those too.

I rummaged through my fabric box looking for some burlap (which I KNOW I have but can't seem to find anywhere) and instead found this - I think it is a linen blend. I was going to just draw lightly on it with a pencil and then pick up some black paint later to go over it but figured Lillie was asleep and if I didn't do it now, I might never end up doing it so instead I just freehanded with a sharpie (yes,  I know - that is rather horrifying that I used a sharpie but that was all I had!). I decided to write "Silent Night" on one Pillow and "Holy Night" on the other. (Silent Night is my favorite Christmas Hymn!) Then I sewed them up and stuffed some extra pillows I had in the garage in them and for FREE I had two new Christmas pillows! YAY! I do need to paint over the sharpie to give it a crisper look, but that is a project for another day. I put them on the couch to take a few quick pictures of but will take more in a few weeks when I actually put them out for Christmas. I picked up some burlap this morning (because the burlap I own seems to be hiding on me) for $3.99 a yard and my next project is going to be some Christmas stockings and a few more pillows - although they will be a different style than these ones. I would love to get to work on them during Lillie's nap today but I am afraid I have too much Dear Lillie sewing that I need to be working on! In fact I had better get moving on it before the wee one awakens!

Anyway here are my FREE pillows (don't look too closely because I was doing it quickly and didn't trace it out in pencil first so there are a lot of little mistakes - yikes):

Jon has even been quite complimentary of them, but I am pretty sure that is just because they didn't cost anything! Haha! Even though I often try to use stuff that we already have, even so, most of my projects normally require at least one trip to either the fabric or craft store.

UPDATE: A SCREENPRINTED VERSION OF THESE  PILLOW COVERS IS NOW AVAILABLE IN OUR SHOP:

And you can see our full 2011 Christmas Tour here:

http://dearlillieblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/our-christmas-tour.html

I hope you all have are having a fabulous Monday!