Leafy, scrappy pillows

My best friend and her husband recently bought a very nice new couch. Once they got it in the living room, it quickly became apparent that she was in desperate need of new pillows to put on her new couch. Much discussion and google image searching later, we decided to make these leafy pillows out of scraps, since she'd already spent a good chunk of cash on the couch. I, of course, decided I wanted some too!

The only fabric we bought is the unbleached cotton for the front. Everything else is scraps. Even the back fabric was free!

She is making hers closed all the way around since she didn't using pillow forms, but I did so I made the backs of mine overlapping flaps for easy removal and washing. (Last fall I lost my favorite throw pillows to a washing machine accident that I do not want to repeat!)

For just a bit of added whimsey and fun, we put a owl in each tree. Almost unnoticeable, but a great detail. Did you notice the owls before I mentioned them?

These were fun to make. You should make some too! If you do, I have one tip to offer. Use Heat'n Bond to make the leaves into iron-on appliques. You can buy it by the yard for super cheap at most fabric stores. This helped a lot for two reasons. First, it made tracing and cutting out the leaves super fast. Second, it perfectly held them nicely in place, without having to mess with pinning, while stitching the tight zig zag around the edges.

We had a few leftover leaves, so I sewed them onto a onesie for my nephew.