How to make envelope slip covers

Baby is almost here! And I’m finally getting around to sharing the tutorials in the nursery! Last week, I showed you how Andy built the Pottery Barn knock off ledge shelves. 7 shelves for $65 baby! On to the slip covers… These are the easiest slip covers you will ever make. You will end up sewing 4 straight lines per cushion. Yep, 4. It’s that easy. Seriously.

Oh and if you are new here, you can catch up on the DIY nursery extravaganza with these posts: Spilling the beans, 10 nursery must haves, Painting the igloo, Bambino gets a crib, the Great rug hunt, mirror hanging trick, how to build picture ledge shelves, and how to make easy valances.

Here’s what you need to make envelope slip covers:

• fabric (I’m so bad at measuring how much fabric to buy, I used this fabric calculator and then bought half a yard more.)
• 1 inch foam the length of your bench
• electric knife to cut the foam
• sewing machine
• thread

Let me back up and start with a quick evolution of this fancy little wall. Here’s the original wall, when this was our room:

Then we moved ourselves out, painted the room, and in came the crib…

We bought to IKEA shelves and turned them into a bench…

Andy built some fun ledge shelves for books and frames…

So, clearly the benches needed a little softening up. My mom has used this tutorial on pillows, but this was her first attempt at envelope cushions on 72 inch envelope slip cover. Anyone can make these! It’s truly a super beginner sewing project. You literally only have to sew 4 straight lines per cushion. Here’s how it goes down:

First thing is first, here is what we used to cut the foam:

And now that you have some idea of what your in for, here are some deets… Mom and I literally just laid the super long piece of IKEA fabric on the floor and eyeballed the first cuts. You want to make sure you leave enough fabric that it overlaps on the back, to make the envelope. Leave about 1.5 in on each side. You want the sides to be snug.

After you cut the piece of fabric, you hem both of the long sides, like #1 in the diagram.

Then fold up one side, and sew it up up. Then fold up the other side to make an envelope, and sew that up. Turn your envelope right side out, and stuff your foam inside. Then, use safety pins to secure the envelope. Voila! Here’s a picture of the envelope…

Pretty simple, huh? One more pretty slip cover cushion shot…

OK, fine just one more…

Have you ever made envelope slip covers before? Oh and if my picture tutorial is not enough, here’s a good you tube video that describes our slip covering method perfectly! High five to sprucing up any pillow or cushion with only 4 straight lines!