Well, you know I love a good repurpose and upcycle.

So when our adorable friend and babysitter Miss Mandi asked me about possible project ideas for her friend’s daughter’s old onesie, I was all over it!

Of course, the simplest way to renew a child’s outgrown shirt is to cut out the design and sew it to a new, bigger shirt.

Or I suggested doing a slip-in picture frame window pillowcase like I did for Big Bro, if she wanted to keep the onesie intact.

But in the end we landed on cutting out the decorative part of the onesie and making it a pillow case applique.

Mandi chose the most lovely soft yellow fabric to compliment the faded yellow, brown, olive green, and pink of the onesie monogram.

We hemmed either end of the yellow fabric by turning under twice and sewing. Then we figured out where we wanted our back slip in opening to be (so that we would know where the center of the front of the pillow is for the applique). [A flange-edge decorative pillow sham is super easy to make–here’s my tutorial.]

Then–deep breath–we cut out the onesie’s monogram. I just cut it out roughly, then trimmed it up after it was detached from the rest of the onesie.

Since we had figured out roughly where the center of the front of the pillow is, we zig-zag stitched around the end of the cut-out monogram to attach it to the pillow face (this is before sewing the pillowcase).

Then, we sewed the pillowcase form (by folding it into itself so the folded over opening was at the back and the monogram was centered on the front–again, the pillow sham tutorial explains all). I love to add a super simple flange by sewing all the way around the perimeter of the finished pillow. For this one, I sewed a straight stitch about a 1/2″ from the edge all the way around. It’s a great detail that really adds a lot of finish detail to a super simple project.

And there you have it: a beautiful pillow AND keepsake! Wheeee!