I’ve got athletic kids and have a pile of their old jerseys socked away in a closet somewhere. I just couldn’t bring myself to throw away the tiny little shirt with their name and number printed on the back. I did a blog post awhile back showing how you can make the jerseys or t-shirts into blankets, mainly because I was intimidated by making them into pillows! However, with the holiday’s coming up, this maybe a great gift for your loved one, so I thought I’d take the plunge and give it a try.

Since my kid’s jerseys are sacred to me, I decided to try this project out using jerseys I found at Thrift Town. I selected jerseys from some of their favorite teams I found in the children’s and men’s departments, and then headed over to the bins section for some thrifted pillows. The jerseys cost around $2.99-$9.99 each, and the pillows cost around $2.99 each. You could easily complete this project for under $10. Very budget friendly for house decor or gift! Plus, I decided to try a no-sew version because, well, I don’t seem to have natural sewing skills!

Items needed for project:

Jersey, pillow, scissors, and adhesive (either iron bond, double sided fabric tape, or liquid stitch. You could be an overachiever and make this into a sewing project. I haven’t quite earned my sewing stripes yet…so I stuck to the sticky stuff!

Step 1: Take the jersey and stuff a pillow inside. How big the jersey is will depend on what size pillow you will need.

*(If you wish to close the arm holes instead of leaving them floppy like I have, you will need to turn the jersey inside out, cut most of the sleeves off the jersey, and use the iron bond to seal the hole closed. Once this is done, turn the jersey right side out, and stuff the pillow inside. See above photo.)

Step 2: Direct your attention to the top of the jersey pillow. Fold the neck of the jersey, almost like you would the sides of a present. Lay a generous strip of adhesive on the pillow in order to secure the first layer of jersey, then a second generous strip in order to secure the top piece.

Step 3: Head to the bottom of the jersey pillow, and cut away any excess material that would make your seem appear bulky after you secured it with the adhesive. Repeat the above step to seal the bottom of the jersey pillow.

Here’s the segment I did on Good Day Sacramento that goes into more visual detail on the above steps: http://gooddaysacramento.cbslocal.com/video/9450181-thrifty-thursday/

That’s it! As mentioned above, if you are a confident seamstress, you can absolutely use your sewing machine to complete this project. Another fun thing I did was get some of my kid’s favorite team banners and glue them onto thrifted pillows. This was very easy as I used permanent adhesive. You could stitch these into place too with relative ease. I think they turned out pretty cute as well!

Gina Doglione-Nielsen is featured every week on Good Day Sacramento’s Thrifty Thursdays, and owns GNJ Consulting which handles Public, Social, and Media Relations for Thrift Town Stores. Gina lives in Northern California with her amazing husband Josh, and is constantly on the go with three “very active” and “strong personality” bambinos; aka Team Nielsen, and loves every minute of it.