From $3 IKEA floor mat to flippin' fabulous floor pouf.

Wanna know how a couple of these striped rugs

become this cushy piece of bum lovin'?

Well, sit down and relax.  Let me start from the beginning.

I happened upon these beauties a while back whilst browsing on West Elm's website. 

What a great {and fashionable} extra seating option, I thought. 

{I don't know how it is at your house, but when we get the whole fam together, it always seems like we are running out of seating.  Someone inevitably ends up sitting on the floor, or we end up redecorating by pulling chairs in from every room in the house.  That's all fine and good, family get togethers don't happen all that often, but I thought that next go around I'd make it easy on myself and get some floor poufs.  They are light, easy to move around and "totally in" right now.}  

If money were no option, I probably would have just bought them directly from West Elm.  But, since I do not have that luxury, I had to do the next best thing...knock 'em off. 

I don't know if I am just picky {or cheap...or both}, but I couldn't find any fabric that "spoke" to me.  I was hoping to have one of those "long lost lovers reunited moments", you know, where the fabric just appears-totally engulfed in angelic light and I'm so overcome with emotion that all I can do is crumble to the floor crying.  Anywho, it didn't happen.  So I just went home.  And that's when I saw these little babies hanging on my banister. 

No angelic light, no overflowing of emotion.  But hey, whatever. 

They are $3 rugs from IKEA.  I had bought three of them not really knowing what I'd do with them, but after looking at them, I realized that they would be an inexpensive and durable option.  So I totally ran with it...and hey whadaya know.  I love 'em...not fall on the floor and cry, love 'em, but almost.

All you need is:
mediocre sewing skills {by that I mean, the ablility to "fudge it" a little and sew in a straight
line}.
Three, $3 IKEA rugs

A Zipper {optional, but with five kids I needed my pouf cover to be removable/washable...this is where my fudging skills came in...didn't know how to sew in a zipper til I did it.  The zipper needs to be as close to the size of the opening as possible...my zipper was 22 inches.}
Filler {I found bean bag filler at K-Mart for $12.99 a bag.  You can use fiber fill, old car parts...whatever floats your boat, but I wanted my pouf to maintain its shape and be extra comfy for my keister.  I ended up using a little over one bag}.
And maybe some extra sewing needles since I broke three during the course of the project.

I started by cutting down one rug into two pieces.

One piece should measure 23in x 23in{or close to that, the widths of the rugs vary from 22 1/2 inches to 23 1/2 inches}, and the other piece should measure around 12in x 23in {again, it's super hard to be totally exact, because each rug is just slightly different in size}.

  
Cut down a second rug the exact same way.  You should now have 2- 23in x 23in pieces, and 2- 12in x 23in pieces.

Finally, cut your third rug down so that you have an additional 2- 12in x 23in pieces...for a grand total of 2- 23in x 23in pieces and 4- 12in x 23in pieces.


Now for the fun part...sewing.  I'll let the pictures do the talking, sound okay?

piece 6 is the second, 23in x 23in piece

once all six pieces are attached, you need to sew the corners.  The white arrows indicate where you should do this.

Here's what it should look like after the corners are sewed together.

Now you need to attach two sides of the bottom of the pouf.  The picture indicates where to do this.

Here's what it will look like after the two sides are sewn.  You should have only one side left unstitched now.
That opening is where your zipper will go...if you want one.  If you don't want a zipper closure, you would stitch this opening closed, leaving a small area open to allow for adding stuffing/filling.  You could then, either hand stitch or machine sew the opening closed after filling.

I realized after I'd made it to this point, that you want both edges hemmed so they have a nice, clean edge.  I lucked out, one of my edges was the selvage edge of the rug, but the other I had to hem under.

I turned the pouf ride side out, and slid one side of the zipper under one side of the opening.  I pinned it in place and sewed the length of the zipper.

Then I unzipped the zipper so that I could work with the other side.  I did the same as before, and slid the other side of the zipper under the other side of the opening, pinned and stitched the length of the zipper.


At this point, you could turn your pouf inside out and reinforce the zipper by stitching just above the top of the zipper, and just below the bottom of the zipper.  My zipper was just slightly shorter than the opening, so I had a little gap at one end that I needed to hem shut.  If you run into this same problem, it's no big deal.

Here's what the final product should look like.

And here's what it should look like after getting filled.

I ended up making two of these bad boys.  I spent $18 on 6 rugs, $39 on three bags of filler, and $5 on two zippers...for a grand total of $62 {or just over $30 for one pouf}.  The cheapest pouf I found on West Elm was $219.  That's a savings of $190.  Boo ya!  You could save a little more money by using a different filler, but I really wanted my poufs to maintain their shape and have a little firmness to them so I splurged and got the good stuff. 

 I can't wait to test 'em out tonight and catch up on a little T.V.