Halloween: Furry Monster Pillows

Pumpkin: Stages of Halloween Pumpkin Being Carved

Welcome to 30 Crafty Days of Halloween! This furry monster pillow craft is part of our guest blogger series. Make sure to check out all of our Halloween Tutorials for more inspiration!

Now that the kids are back in school, I’m ready to switch over to Fall Decor. Yes, even Halloween decor. These fun and furry Monster Pillows are SO easy to make, and you can vary the look depending one which faux fur you choose. Hi, I’m Polly from Pieces by Polly here sharing a project for 30 Crafty Days of Halloween. You can learn a bit more about me here. Besides blogging on my own blog, I also own two Etsy shops, one for quilts and one devoted to Handmade Harry Potter gifts. I also design and share projects for Fairfield World and Shannon Fabrics, so their products show up in a lot of my projects (including this one).

I love Halloween mostly because it’s the season of Harry Potter, and our whole family are Harry Potter nuts at our house. I made a giant Monster Book of Monsters cushion a few weeks ago, and that’s where the idea for these pillows began. I love Halloween decorations with a little bit of an edge, but not so far as gruesome. I think these Furry Monster Pillows strike the perfect balance of scary and fun. I only planned on making three pillows, but the kids all fell in love with them and this guy insisted he NEEDED a green one.

MATERIALS

1/2 yard faux fur or the fuzziest, softest fabric you can find (I used Golden Wolf Fur, Purple Monkey Shag Fur, Orange Candy Shag Fur, and Embossed Chevron Cuddle® in Jade, all from Shannon Fabrics.)

1 pair of Clear Giant Animal Safety Eyes (40mm were the largest I could find, although I used 30mm eyes for the green pillow. Most craft stores don’t carry them that large, so I ordered my 40 mm animal eyes from 6060 on Etsy.)

Nail Polish (optional)

Medium size bag of Poly-Fil® Premium Fiber Fill Stuffing

Sewing Machine and accompanying supplies

Sharpie marker or similar

Needle and thread

If you’ve never worked with fauz fur before, you may want to check out some of these tips for sewing with faux fur.

INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1: You can find colored safety eyes, but in the larger sizes all of the ones I saw were natural colors like blue and brown, and the weird colors really stand out well, SO I recommend ordering clear eyes and coloring them yourself. Just paint the BACKS with a little bit of nail polish. Two coats worked for me and of all our nail polish was the cheap kiddy bottles that worked the best. You’ll want to do at least two coats.

Step 2: You’ll want your pillow in two separate pieces, so the fur can completely lay the direction that it wants to. When you’re cutting the fur, I suggest cutting the base and then pulling the hairs apart.

Step 3: Trace the outline of your pillow on the back of your fabric. I used a 16 1/2 inch square because I had an easy square that size to trace. You could do it a bit larger. Remember you want AT LEAST a 1/2 seam allowance when working with faux fur.

Step 4: Mark the position of your eyes. Cut a little snip through the fabric. Put your eyes through the hole and attach the back.

Step 5: Pin the two sides of your pillow in place, furry sizes together. Stitch around the sides leaving and opening only big enough to turn your pillow right side out. Clip the corners and turn right side out.

Step 6: Add the stuffing and stitch shut. It’s tricky hand stitching with the fur, but you won’t be able to see the sloppy stitches through the fur.

Step 7: That’s it, display your monster pillows! You’ll want to make one for everyone in the family.

Looking for more Halloween fun ideas? You can find all of my Harry Potter ideas in one place here. But here are a few of my all-time favorite projects from the past: