We like to bring all of the grand kids something when we visit. I usually try to bring a small craft or DI Y project that will fit in my suitcase, because I have 6 of them that I have to bring, but this time I just fell in love with some pillow beds that I saw on Pinterest. I thought they would be perfect because we usually take up all of the room on the couches and the kids end up sitting on the floor to watch TV.

I figured that if I just made the cases, I would send my daughter some money to buy the pillows and that way they would already be there for me to put together when we arrived. Two of the kids are older, so I had to add an extra pillow to theirs, making it 22 pillows to buy. My daughter said that she could feel people looking at her strangely when she was trying to shove all of the pillows in her shopping cart and again when trying to fit them all into her vehicle.

She stored the pillows in the basement until I got there. The kids kept asking her what all of the pillows were for and didn’t understand why they couldn’t use them.

So, here are the materials I used and what I did to make 5 pillow beds:

Materials for each toddler bed:
4 pillows
2 yards of material
2 yards of scrap material at least 8 inches wide
Matching thread
Coordinating ribbon

Materials for each youth bed:
5 pillows
2 1/2 yards of material
2 1/2 yards of scrap material at least 8 inches wide
Matching thread
Coordinating ribbon

I measured my pillows and found that each pillow pocket needed to be 22 1/2 inches wide and 17 inches high.
Because most material is only 45 inches wide, I widened it by adding an 8 inch strip of material from a sheet.

Then I laid the material out, right side up, and folded the sides over until the width was 22 1/2 inches. I made sure that the side with the scrap material sewn on was on top. I pinned and sewed both ends.

Next, I turned the whole thing right side out and pressed the seams.
As you can see, most of the scrap material is now hidden.

For the toddler beds, I folded the material in half, ironed it to make a crease, and then pinned and sewed along the crease.

For the youth bed, I measured 17 inches on one end, folded it over, ironed a crease, and then pinned and sewed along the crease. Then I folded the material, in half from the 17 inch seam, ironed a crease, and then pinned and sewed along the crease. Because the youth bed has an extra pillow, it is 17 inches longer than the toddler bed so I needed to add the extra step.

Now that you have that center seam sewn, just bring the ends of both sides to that center seam, iron crease, pin and sew.

This will give you 4 equal pockets, 5 for the bigger bed, to hold the pillows.

If you want to, you can measure out some ribbon, sew it to one end, and it can be used to tie the pillow beds up for storage. I added the ribbons to each one but I personally think that they were too long and in the way and the kids will probably end up cutting them off.

Here are all five beds completed and ready to be packed in my suitcase.

Stuffing the pillows into their compartments ended up being quite a workout but I loved the end results and so did all of the grand kids. Here are some of the kids giving them a test run.

The pillow bed was so comfy that the little one feel asleep on it.

I have found that even the pets loved the pillow beds.

Not only did the grand kids really enjoy helping me put their pillow beds together and loved laying on them, but they were thrilled to finally solve the mystery of what ALL of those pillows were for.

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