Cindy Crushes Programming: DIY No Sew Unicorn Pillow

I’m always excited to see what fun stuff librarian Cindy Shutts is doing with teens in her library. Today she is walking us through a No Sew Unicorn Pillow.

I saw a picture of a unicorn pillow on the internet and realized I could make one myself based on the no sew pillow concept. Unicorns are still very popular and who doesn’t love a hand made pillow.

Supplies:

• Permanent Vinyl (gold for the horn and black for the eyelashes) (Karen’s note: Oracal 651 is a permanent vinyl. Here’s a vinyl 101 to help get you started.)
• Fleece (I used a 50% off coupon) and used three yards of fleece for twenty pillows
• Felt of various colors especially green for the leaves
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Fabric scissors
• Stuffing for pillows

Step Zero: Prepare all the fleece before the event. I cut all the fleece into sets of two sheets each 14×14 inches.

Step One: Use the cameo silhouette machine to cut the vinyl horns and eyelashes. If you do not have a cameo silhouette machine you can use black and gold felt. I did have patrons who wanted to make their own eyelashes and horns.

Step Two: Have patrons cut 1 ½  to 2 inches squares in each of the corners of the fabric.

Step Three: Have the teens then cut 1 ½  to 2 inch fringe and I made it a cm wide all around the pillow.

Step Four: Tie the fringe from the front to the back sheet of fringe. All the fringe should be tied to the fringe behind it. Teens often need help learning to tie knots. This part of the craft takes the longest. One side should be left untied.

Step Five: Stuff the pillow and try to make it even.

Step Six: Tie the fringe around the side you just used to stuff the pillow.

Step Seven: Place the horn and the eyelashes on the pillow. If you use vinyl hold it down for a few minutes.

Step Eight: Make flowers out of felt. I used this websites’ flower tutorial. https://diyinspired.com/diy-no-sew-felt-flowers/

• Cut one green petal about 1 ½ inch tall and oval shaped body. I free handed this part.
• Cut the color you want the flower to be and make it 2 inches long by 4 inches wide
• Cut the felt in petal form like the first picture below.
• Cut three more petals out of the color your felt flower is.
• Hot glue the flower petals and roll the main piece of the flower together. Glue the three petals to the green felt leaf to form a base and then glue the rolled flower to the base. Glue the flower to the base.

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Final Thoughts: This was a really enjoyable craft. There are a lot of steps. Having fabrics scissors is a must. I used coupons on all the items to make this craft. I also used sales to make things avoidable and always reuse my supplies. Let your teens become creative. I have a few pictures of my patrons’ pillows below.

Filed under: Teen Programming