Heart shaped pillow

Add some coziness to your Valentines decor with this Pottery Barn dupe heart shaped pillow. No need to pay the high price tag and you can make some in whatever color you wish!

Hi guys! I’m back with some super sweet Valentine’s Day crafts to share with you. We are starting off with a heart shaped pillow tutorial. These Sherpa heart pillows are inspired from ones that I saw at Pottery Barn. Of course, I didn’t want to pay the amount they are asking for each pillow, so I decided to make some myself! 🙂

Luckily I already had some leftover fabric from my other Pottery Barn pillow dupes. You may remember this Sherpa pumpkin pillow and this ghost pillow. I figured I could use up the rest of the fabric on these heart shaped pillows. I actually have some fabric left even after these two projects, so who knows, you may see another project made with them in the future. Ha!

You can make these heart pillows in any fabric you want and in any color you want. However, I really like the fluffy Sherpa fabric, it makes the DIY heart pillow super soft and cozy. Think outside the box for your fabric sources. I found an inexpensive Sherpa blanket at Walmart, that is what the pink heart is made from. It was only like $5 or something! I have really gotten my money’s worth out of that purchase. 😉

These pillows were very easy to make and in fact, I made both of them in one day. The hardest part was drawing a heart big enough to use for a pattern. Luckily for you, I have taken care of that part for you. Well, with the help of Mr. Wonderful too! He digitized my heart pattern for me to make available for you all! Thank you Mr. Wonderful!!

Supplies to make a heart shaped pillow

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

Heart template (available below, keep reading)
Sherpa fabric of your choice
Coordinating color thread
Packing paper or wrapping paper
Scissors
Poly-fil
Sewing machine (this is a newer version of the one I use)
Straight Pins
Sewing gauge

How to make a heart shaped pillow

Like I mentioned above, I had to make a heart template from scratch big enough to make a heart pillow. The Pottery Barn heart pillows are 16″ tall by 15″ wide. I wanted one of mine to be similar in size and that meant I needed a BIG heart. Like bigger than I could print on a piece of paper. I ended up hand drawing a heart on a piece of packing paper to use as my pattern.

Print out the heart pillow templates

To access the heart template, click on the links below:

I would recommend printing these out on cardstock if you have it because that will make a sturdier template. If not, regular paper will work too. The most important thing is to print these templates at 100% to make sure the size is correct. Every printer is different so just make sure your settings are NOT set to ‘fit to page’ or that the box is not checked letting your printer make changes. If your printer does not print all the way to the edges, that will not be a big deal because these templates overlap each other.

The size of my finished pink heart shaped pillow is 15.5″ tall x 16.5″ wide. The size of the heart template is about 17.25″ tall by 18.5″ wide. Because the size of the heart is so big and certainly larger than a 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper, you will have to print out 5 parts to the template. Lay them out on the table and line up the X and O in the middle of the heart to make sure they are pieced together correctly. Tape the different parts of the template together before you cut it out and trace it.

I did not include a pattern for the smaller heart pillow, I just ended up drawing a heart a couple inches smaller inside the heart pattern that I had already and cut that out. The finished size of the white heart pillow is 10.5″ tall by 11.5″ wide.

Cut out and trace the heart template

After you have pieced all of the templates together, cut out the heart and trace it onto a piece of packing paper. You could also just use the back of wrapping paper if you don’t have any packing paper. This will now be your sewing pattern, cut this heart pattern out. Since the Sherpa fabric would not be easy to trace onto, we will have to pin the paper pattern to it and cut around that.

Pin pattern to fabric

Using straight pins, pin the heart pattern to the Sherpa fabric. This kind of fabric is the same on both sides so it doesn’t matter what side you pin it to.

Next you will cut the heart out. You don’t want to cut right next to the pattern as we need to leave a seam allowance. I used a generous seam allowance of ¾” because of this kind of fluffy fabric. Set a sewing gauge to ¾” and follow around the heart cutting it out at that length.

Now you have the first side of your heart pillow cut out.

Instead of repeating those steps to cut out another one, I just laid this heart onto the Sherpa fabric and cut around it following right next to the heart. This will give you two layers of Sherpa hearts of the same size.

Now, remove the paper heart pattern and pin both fabric layers together. I pinned them about 1.5″ inside the perimeter of the heart.

Sew the heart pillow

Next, you will sew the two layers together. There is no line to follow, you will have to figure out where ¾” is on your sewing machine and follow along that line. Mine happened to have it marked, if yours does not, just measure ¾” from your needle and place a piece of blue tape there. Then just use that as a guide to line up the edge of your heart. Luckily this fabric is really forgiving so if you don’t sew the line perfectly, it will not matter. 😉

Make sure to leave an opening of about 6″ long on one side of the heart so you can stuff the pillow.

Stuff your pillow

First, turn the heart right side out and press out on all the seams from the inside.

Next, start adding Poly-fil stuffing to the heart.

It will take a lot of stuffing, more than you think. As I add the stuffing, I like to break it up by pulling the stuffing apart a bit so the finished pillow does not look too clumpy.

Hand sew the heart pillow closed

To close the heart, you will have to hand sew the opening shut. I used a ladder stitch to hide the seam. It would be really hard to show a ladder stitch with this fabric, so if you don’t know how to do it, just google how to sew a ladder stitch.

When all was said and done, you could not even tell! I say that is a success. 😉

Display your DIY heart pillow

You can use these adorable pillows on your couch for Valentine’s Day or display them in a cute basket. Although hearts aren’t just for Valentine’s Day, you can use them all year round. They would look great as throw pillows on your bed or as decor in a little kid’s room.

What do you think? Are you going to make some too? I will be back soon with another heart craft for you that I think you will like! Stay tuned for that. Chat soon friends!