Outdoor Pillows

It was about time we decided to set up a patio table on the deck outside our bedroom. And pillows were the most exciting part! It was actually my first project that I had planned, even before we moved from the old house. I had bought fabric weeks before we even moved. Call me crazy, but it was my #1 project idea since May.

There are so many fun and funky patterns of outdoor fabric, why would you buy them from the store? And I think they’re a little overpriced if you buy them from a Target or Home Goods. So I headed to Joanne.com to find a few patterns I liked. Luckily there were many! And a few cute ones in-store too. They were even all 40% off! All I needed to do was buy some stuffing and I used my sewing machine to do the rest.

Mix’n & Match’n

 

Here’s what I found on my first round of shopping in Joanne.

 

In love with the geometric one.

 

I ordered these three on Joanne.com.

 

Another reason I wanted to make them myself is because I didn’t want everything to be so matchy matchy. By choosing my own materials and making them myself, I could mix funky patterns with more modern ones. I chose these two Tommy Bahama ones that are slightly different colors. The one on the left I “paired” with another geometric one from HGTV. See the pairs below.

 

 

They’re just squares, so really there’s no reason to explain in detail how they were born. I just measured and cut all the fabric to the same dimensions. Then I sewed them inside out, almost all the way up. Turned them rightside out and them stuffed them with fluff. Then I finished stitching up the little hole remaining.

 

 

I think they turned out pretty great! Plus they’re oversized and really comfy to lean back on. Functional as well as fashionable! And I can say for certain, they’re 100% waterproof. While they are supposed to be waterproof, I wasn’t totally sure they’d survive a storm. We’ve had plenty of storms and left them out (once by accident, once on purpose to test them) only to come back the next day to dry pillows. I wasn’t sure whether I should put plastic in them, or do anything, but I’m not even worried now.

 

 

The patio setup was a whole other story! This bad boy took almost half a day to assemble. Courtesy of Home Depot. We used our gift cards on this – so THANK YOU to everyone who gave us those as house warming gifts! We unleashed them all together for this. The set was on sale and the very last one, so we made our move. Joe has always wanted patio chairs that rock back and forth, so now he has his wish.

 

 

 

Looks easy enough, right? Wrong. Probably 150-200 pieces. And when we got home and opened the box, one of the pieces of wicker had a huge hole in the back of the chair.

 

 

 

 

Luckily they were able to replace that piece with the one from the floor model. That’s a whole story… They make it look so beautiful and simple. Oh man, we should have just bought the floor model in the first place.

 

 

 

 

But we got it how we wanted it in the end. The pillows took less than half the time the table took to put together. And the pillows were one thousand times more fun. The best part was choosing fabrics and ordering them. But it was equally fun to make them and throw them onto chairs, one by one. It was almost instant gratification, but with the satisfaction of knowing I made them. Really, they took 10 minutes apiece to sew. That’s only an hour for six pillows. And at roughly $10/$15 per pillow, I think that’s a bargain. And I know nobody else’s patio will have the exact same assortment.

 

 

 

 

This is my new favorite spot at the house. We’ve enjoyed plenty of dinners and even a few breakfasts out here. I think it was Father’s Day that we put it together. We definitely needed to upgrade our gathering place for meals. We were using the old patio set and it was way too small. We’ve since brought that one down to the walkout area with the grill. So now we have an upstairs and a downstairs dining area!

 

 

 

I love my twinkly LED lights! I also added a few drops of peppermint essential oil to these candles to hopefully repel bugs. There’s nothing like long summer nights hanging out on the patio. Late dinners and even later talks. Lingering outside, chatting with the neighbors before turning out the lights.