Make Your Own Envelope Pillow Covers!

Pillows are an inexpensive and easy way to add a pop of color to a room! You can easily switch out pillows to help decorate for each new season, or to give your home a change of scenery. But if you don’t want to go buy new pillows every time you want to change the colors in your living room, try just changing the pillow covers instead! I covered two ratty old pillows with some homemade envelope pillow covers, and in just under an hour our couch had a brand new look!

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers

You only need a couple things to make your own envelope pillow covers:

  • a yard of fabric (a thicker upholstery type fabric is best; 1 yard of fabric was enough for me to make 2 pillow covers for standard 16″ square pillows)
  • a sewing machine and standard sewing supplies (thread, scissors, etc.)
  • pillows you want to cover

The pillows that came with our couch had a few minor tears in them, but they were still nice and full. Luckily, pillow covers are the perfect solution for that!

Lay out your entire yard of fabric and set the pillow on top of it. In order to make the pillow cover fit perfectly you want to cut down the fabric into a long strip that is just 1″ wider than your pillow on the top and the bottom (as shown below).

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

Tightly wrap the strip of fabric around your pillow and cut the end of the strip off so that there is about 6″ of overlap.

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

The next step is to hem the short ends of the fabric. Fold 1/4″ of fabric over at one short end and press the fold. Then fold it over again so the raw edge is hidden, and press again.

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

Sew a single line up the middle of the folded edge to hold the seam in place, and repeat for the other short edge.

Lay the strip of fabric right side up and then fold both sides in so that the ends overlap about 6″. Now you’re going to size it so that it will fit your specific pillows. Lay your pillow on top of the folded fabric as shown. You want about 1/4″ to 1/2″ of extra fabric to both the left and the right of the pillow. If you have more or less fabric, adjust your folds accordingly.

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

Once you have your fabric folded to the right size, pin the edges.

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

Sew down both edges leaving 1/4″ margin. Remove the pins and turn the pillow cover inside out.

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

Press the seams, and then stuff the pillow in! The pillow cover should fit tightly, so it might take a bit of smushing to get the pillow in, but it will fit!

Then put your brand new pillows on your couch and enjoy! (Like the little vinyl mice I put up for Halloween?!)

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

I love this fabric, and it adds a nice bit of blue to our living room!

DIY Envelope Pillow Covers: Add a pop of color to your couch in under an hour!

I never would have thought pillows could make such a big difference in a room, but after this I plan to switch mine out for every season!

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Jessi Wohlwend

I believe that anyone can do crafts and DIY projects, regardless of skill or experience. I love sharing simple craft ideas, step by step DIY project tutorials, cleaning hacks, and other tips and tricks all with one goal in mind: giving you the tools you need to “do it yourself”, complete fun projects, and make awesome things!

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Reader Interactions

  1. Diane says

    8 years ago

    Just want to thank you. I have been looking for this. I think this can also be done for inside- the- bed pillows too.

  2. Kayla says

    10 years ago

    Cute pillows, I tweeted them. Thanks for sharing on SSM!

  3. PJ says

    10 years ago

    I’m about to start working on my living room, and I’ll have to cover a LOT of pillows! Thanks for sharing this at the Pinworthy Project Party, I’m pinning and featuring this week 🙂

  4. Vanessa says

    10 years ago

    I’m the worst about switching out our couch pillows! They’re getting really ratty and used looking. Adding these covers to my to do list!

    • Jessi Wohlwend says

      10 years ago

      That cushion looks great, and pillow covers would definitely be the perfect thing to easily make the pillows match it!

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