DIY: Placemat or Pillowcover

With my new job I haven't tackled much in the DIY/Home Décor arena lately.  My house tends to be messy enough without projects.  But I did recently do a small update copied almost entirely from my Mom.  Mom is changing up the color scheme in her living room.  She's had two pillows that look like this for almost a decade and while she still likes them - they just don't "go" anymore.

 

Enter a couple clearance placemats from Target.  That's right PLACEMATS!  Total cost $8.



 So being the big ol' copycat that I am, I immediately get on the Target website cause I have these two pillows that I settled for and have never loved:

 

 

Obviously I can't get the exact same thing as Mom cause those don't go in my space (and would be WAY to matchy for me), but I did find these placemats on the Target website (one is shown from the front, the other from the back).

 

 

 



 I got really excited and ordered immediately.   Online they came in sets of 4/$16 so I'm out a little more money than Mom, plus my old pillows were too big to reuse so I had to buy inserts ($5.99 at Tuesday Morning) for a total per pillow cost of $14.  Not bad for something I love.

I'm terrible at taking process pictures - essentially Mom and I just ripped out three fourths of the bottom seam, folded the new pillow up and pushed it in, arranged the new pillow correctly, and then re-sewed the seam (Mom did the re-sewing).  If you were going to put them somewhere with high traffic and a lot of use I think it would be pretty easy to add a zipper when you rip out the seam.   That way you could wash the cover.  Anyway here's the final product in my house.

 

And here's the view from the couch.

 

 

Has anyone else tackled any super easy, very satisfying projects lately?  Seen any genius pillow ideas on Pinterest?