Button Heart Pillow for Valentines Day

Painters drop cloth and thrift store buttons were all I needed to make this button heart pillow. I love the vintage touch that the various shades of buttons gives the pillow. And using drop cloth is an easy way of giving something an old world look without a lot of expense. Total cost for the pillow? Less than $7!
You can either use a store bought pillow cover or make your own from sturdy fabric like painters drop cloth. Here I just sewed around the edges, stuffed it and frayed the borders to give it a casual look. Total time to make the pillow itself was less than 30 minutes.
Draw a heart in pencil onto the pillow fabric. For demonstration purposes, I actually used a bit of pen to show the outline. Otherwise you wouldn't have seen it on the photo.
Then it was on to gluing all the buttons I had saved. I used simple white craft glue and it seems to have worked really well.
Start by gluing bigger buttons on first and building and filling with smaller buttons. I found the flat buttons worked best, but you can use what you want. Layering some smaller buttons on top of larger ones gives the pillow some more dimension.
It took me about half an hour to fill in the heart shape which is about 10" at it's widest. I honestly couldn't tell you how many buttons it took, but I'm guessing it's over 100. If you buy them at the thrift store, you can get a huge bag of various colours for about $2 and weed out the white ones.
Let it dry overnight. Fluff it and place it on a favourite chair or add to the pile of pillows on your bed for Valentines Day.
Heather (New House New Home)
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Sandra Salisbury Sandra Salisbury on Feb 08, 2016
    This is the best button and or heart pillow that I've seen, it's not cloyingly sweet! I'm wondering if it would be too sweet if a few pink buttons were added- maybe it would lean a little more toward the "Shabby Chic" style. I have never done anything with painters cloth. Is this actually a drop cloth that we purchase at a paint store?
  • Barb Hetzel Barb Hetzel on Feb 24, 2016
    The buttons don't fall off? Do you have to hand wash?
  • Catherine benoot Catherine benoot on Jan 14, 2017
    Where can you find that many buttons for $7? The buttons are so expensive over here.
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  • Samantha Stewart Samantha Stewart on Jun 07, 2016
    problem is the glue will not stand up to washing. Rather use a fabric glue which would be more resiliant. I would also wash by hand.
  • Maureen Maureen on Jun 10, 2016
    Lovely on pillows....but I'm going to "frame" mine! ♥
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