DIY Tooth Fairy Pillow (Tutorial)

Sophie starts Kindergarten this fall. When we toured the classrooms at Kindergarten Roundup earlier this spring I noticed a chart listing all the teeth various students lost during their Kindergarten school year. That poster brought up all sorts of questions from Sophie. Will it hurt? Who is the Tooth Fairy? Why does she want teeth? Does she pull my teeth? Can she give me prizes instead of money? (The Tooth Fairy will be more than happy to give prizes instead of money).

When I was a child my sister and I both had special Tooth Fairy pillows. After realizing I could make at least three pillows (one for each of my girls) for less than the price of purchasing one pillow from Etsy or ebay, I went into DIY mode.

I let Sophie choose the fabric. I really like the print she chose for the main pillow portion. I personally would have chosen a different print for the pocket, but Sophie loved these two prints together. My only "rule" was that she could NOT pick any licensed fabric (e.g., Disney, Hello Kitty, etc.). I'm not a fan of highly commercialized cartoon images and feel prints and solids create a boutique quality product.

Items Needed:

• Two 6” x 6” squares of fabric for pillow
• One 4” x 5” contrasting fabric for pocket
• 27” of 5/8” grosgrain ribbon (12” for handle and 15” for bow embellishment.)
• Initial badge pin (Hobby Lobby $.99) 
• Poly-fil or pillow stuffing of your choice

Directions:
For the pocket, fold over all four edges, WRONG sides together 1/2" and sew.

Pin the WRONG side of pocket to the center of the RIGHT side of one pillow square (so both the pillow square and pocket are RIGHT side facing you). Sew sides and bottom of pocket to pillow square.

Pin 12” of grosgrain ribbon on the RIGHT side of the same pillow square at the 1” and 5” locations. Make sure your ribbon handle is pinned DOWN from the top edge looping down toward the pocket. Make sure your pins are lower than your seam allowance so you can remove them once you turn your pillow right side out.

Sew the pillow fabric RIGHT sides together leaving a small opening to turn the fabric right side out. Remove pins which held the ribbon in place.

Stuff the pillow with poly-fil, fabric scraps, recycled plastic sacks, or whatever you wish to use as your stuffing. Sophie enjoyed getting to do this part. Hand-sew opening closed.

Add the initial badge pin to the pocket and hand-sew a bow (made from 15” of 5/8” grosgrain ribbon) onto the pillow at a diagonal.

The back looks like this...



Sophie, Piper, and Riley love the way their Tooth Fairy pillows turned out. It was a fun and quick little project in which they could participate. Now I better let the Tooth Fairy know she needs to stock up on prizes rather than money for the teeth in this household.