Do you like to hit the after Christmas clearance sales? I do! I don't mind storing things for a year if it means I got it for 90% off. I grabbed these place mats at Target last year-and it was no problem that there were only one of a kind since I wasn't thinking of using them for the table. Instead, I saw that these place mats were made with a front and back fabric-so they were basically pillowcases that had been sewn shut. Also in the Christmas clearance section, I saw lots of bags of "snow batting"--the kind you unroll and put under villages or trees-but it's the same polyfill material used for stuffing pillows. It was super cheap, so I bought a couple packages for each pillow.
Materials
1 fabric place mat (make sure that it has a front and back fabric)
Stuffing material
Thread to match
Use a sharp pair of scissors or a seam ripper to open up the seam along the bottom of the place mat. Start and end about 1 inch from the edges.
If using flat snow batting, unroll it and then accordion fold it into a rectangle that will fit inside the pillow.
To make it easier to insert into the pillow, roll up the batting and stick one end into the pillow and then the other. Use your hands to smooth it flat.
Sew up the seam either on your sewing machine or by hand (or for a no-sew version, add stick-on Velcro or fabric glue).
This project took about 5 minutes per pillow. I chose to just make a quick pillow, but you could do pillow covers if you wanted to take the time to add buttons or snaps or sew-in Velcro.