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DIY projects

HOW TO dress shirt pillow sham in 6 easy steps

Here’s my first videoƒ tutorial! In it I show you a quick and super easy way to give your well-loved button-up shirt a second life as a comfy throw pillow. I hope you like it. Now go make some throw pillows!

Supplies

  • dress shirt
  • pillow or pillow insert
    It should be slightly smaller than your shirt.
  • scissors
  • pencil or chalk
  • pins
  • sewing machine or sewing needle
  • thread

Instructions

  1. Button up shirt around your pillow
  2. Position your pillow on the shirt
  3. Mark up your shirt
  4. Pin your shirt and cut out the sham
  5. Sew all the open edges
  6. Finally, unpin, unbutton, stuff the sham, and rebutton the sham

Useful tips

  • You can also use women’s blouses. Try large, bright prints and different fabrics that can complement your specific decor.
  • Bey, an artist from Barcelona, says the button side of the pillow may be a little uncomfortable, but all you have to do is turn the pillow over. The buttons make it easy to change the cover whenever you want.
  • I made a colorful pillow from a woman’s silk blouse.
  • I snuggled two of my pillows together on the couch next to my Sefte throw.
  • If you saw me one The Nate Berkus Show and you’re wondering how to make the patterns, sit tight. I’ll be posting a tutorial on design techniques you can use to come up with original patterns of your own, and show you how to render them on the pillows.
    Check back for the tutorial.
  • A gingham shirt pillow made by Bey includes a charming patch. Photography via El Diario de Bey

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55 replies on “HOW TO dress shirt pillow sham in 6 easy steps”

I want to give this a try but I’m interested is keeping the collar on any ideas on how to close the neck opening without compromising the shape of the pillow? Thanks!

I have been asked to make a pillow from a boy scout uniform. Any suggestions to be able to use part of sleeve badges as well.

Hi Lois. Those sleeve badge sure are cool! It certainly would be a waste not to use them. What if you remove the badges from the sleeves, and then sew them on the back of the shirt pillow? If leave the sleeves on and sew them shut, you’d have a shirt shaped shirt pillow. 😀

Thank you for such a wonderful memory making idea!! We just lost our dad to Parkinson’s disease. So these pillows will be a wonderful memory of him! Love you for sharing this idea! Jeanne

Hi Jeanne, I’m so sorry to hear about your dad. 🙁 I hope the pillows provide you and your family a little bit of comfort and help keep your wonderful memories of him close. Thanks for stopping by and sharing.

Thanks so much for the informative video! I recently bought some women’s linen dresses from a local charity and wanted to make them into pillows and wasn’t really sure how to go about it. Now that I have watched your video it will be super simple and I’ll be able to get more than one pillow per dress doing it your way!

Hi, Vickie! I’m so glad you like the video. It IS super simple, but if you have any questions don’t hesitate to send me a message. Have fun making all those pillows! Thanks for visiting and taking the time to write!

Hi Kellie! I’m so glad you like it. I hope the video inspired you to make some new pillow with old shirts. Thanks for stopping by to watch the video and say hello!

This is such a creative idea. I recently moved to the coast and my throw pillows do not match my new coastal decor. I’m heading to the goodwill to find some shirts in blues, tans and beige tones. Hopefully some stirpes too !! I may even try to use the sleeves to make ruffles for the back of the shirt for another look. Absolutely LOVE this idea, $2 for a brand new pillow, Amazing, Thank You again !!

I love coastal decor! Ruffles with the sleeves? Now that’s creative! If you don’t find stripes you can use white shirts and then painting stripes on them or find a blue shirt and use a bleach pen to make white stripes. 😀 I’m so excite about your new decor and your awesome pillows. Please send me pictures! Thanks for visiting and taking the time to write, LeDean.

Hi Minerva, I’m so glad you like the tutorial. Thanks so much for visiting my blog and taking the time to write. I’m making some changes so I can put up post more regularly. Again, thanks so much for you support. I am truly truly grateful!

What a great idea!! I have some shirts from my husband and I was thinking of making pillows but this is a much easier way because you use the buttons. Congratulations for the idea!

I’m so glad you like the project, Isabel. Thanks for visiting and taking the time to write! 😀

I’m glad you like it, Linda! I have plans for even easier shirt pillows, so stick around. Thanks for visiting, watching the video, and writing to me!

wow! I am so going to have a go at this. I just gave 5 bag fulls of my husbands’ old shirts to charity, now I have to try and repurpose some more…Thanks so much for sharing your great ideas.

Good for you! It’s always better to give to charity first. You help out a good cause, and you get a tax write off. I’m so glad you like the project. I hope you have fun with it when you get some more shirts! Thanks for visiting, watching the tutorial, and writing, Tehila!

Thank you for this wonderful idea. I made each one of my neices a pillow from my brother’s shirts. We recently loss him and the pillows are a great comfort to each child when they need a “hug” from their Dad.

Your design idea is a pretty decor idea, but it’s a beautiful memory keeper too.

Hi Kirstin. Thank you for writing in. It’s so wonderful you were able to make such a thoughtful and meaningful gift. It’s truly touching. XOs to you and yours.

Yay! Thanks, Jenn! I’m so glad you like it! Tell me how it goes! And thanks for visiting me and for writing too! XO 🙂

Congratulations on such an innovative idea. I am truly impressed by your unique skill set of having brilliant ideas and the ability to articulate those so completely so that we can get to the happy task of imitating your project. Truly appreciated.

I was happy!

I only had that one shirt to cut. There was no scene cut so I had to deliver the lines perfectly. Then I had to decide in my head if my delivery was good enough before I actually cut the shirt. It took like 500 takes!

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