How to Give Your Pillows a Make-Over on a Budget

I want to share a tip with you today that will help you to refresh a lot of your spaces…and pretty inexpensively. Everyone here has a different budget, but I’m almost certain that each of you likes to get a good deal. One way you can stretch your decorating dollars is to recover throw pillows you already own. Almost every house I go into has a collection of pillows to use as decoration on their furniture; a lot of times, those pillows have seen better days. Whether they have pilled fabric, have stains, are torn, or just plain don’t match anymore…there’s hope!

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Pillow covers to the rescue! There are some seriously cute options available on the cheap if you know where to look. Before I share my favorites with you, I want to tell you a couple of tricks I’ve learned for the easiest way to get the covers onto the pillows (it’s not as easy as it seems).

1. Zip and unzip the pillow cover a few times to make sure there aren’t any catches in the zipper itself.

2. Fold the pillow in half to insert it into the cover. It makes it much easier to fit through the opening, as the pillow will be wider than the opening itself.

3. Once you have it pushed into the far side of the cover, unfold the pillow and work to get it into all 4 corners of the cover.

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4. Be careful when you go to zip the cover. I’ve found that they can catch, but if you make sure the pillow is inserted fully and are able to pull both sides of the zipper close together, you’ll be more successful!

5. When you have the pillow into the cover and it’s zipped, grab 2 corners and give the pillow a good shake. Make sure you have both the cover and the pillow in your grip, or this part won’t work. You’ll want to do this on each side of the pillow to help get rid of lumps and bumps and help to fill in the corners.

6. After you have the covers on your pillows, it’s nice to go over them with a steamer to get rid of any wrinkles, for a fresh + crisp look.

It’s really amazing to me how much the pillow covers can change the look of the pillows…and the room itself! I also love being able to mix-and-match with different colors + patterns.

If you’re ready to give your room a little face-lift, I would whole-heartedly recommend ordering some pillow covers. All you need to do is measure your pillows to make sure you order the correct size (generally, toss pillows are 14”, 16”, 18”, or 20” square) and then start shopping! The transformation can be pretty dramatic for (usually) less than $10 a pillow.
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The pillows in these 2 pictures are all the same…I just put new pillow covers on them! The pillow make-over: 7 (old) pillows, $64 spent on new covers, 30 minutes prep-time = worth it!

Now, if you’re handy (I, myself, am not), you could most-certainly sew new covers for your pillows. Honestly, though, at the end of the day…you’re probably going to spend more to buy the fabric than you would to just straight-up buy covers already made. That being said…I totally get if you have some fantabulous fabric you want to use. If that’s the case, by all means…you do you! So, my almost always source for pillow covers is Amazon. With a great selection and fantastic prices, it’s tough to beat! You can buy the pillow covers I shared above here (tons of colors), here (colors galore), here (whoa, more colors!), and…here (you guessed it…more colors!). Do some browsing…there are so many more I want to get! I can’t wait for future projects so I have an excuse…

Ok, now it’s time to scour your closets and take a look at your sofa to see what kind of potential for fantastic decorative pillows you have!