Envelope pillow cover/ Awesome sewing videos

This is an update on my adventures in sewing. I have accomplished a little bit in the sewing world so far. I read about a lot of skills in my Dummies guide but it wasn't really real for me. I realized about half way through the book that reading a book to teach me how to sew was going to work about as well as reading a book to learn how to crochet did. In a word it didn't. I was having the same problem as before. The flat drawing doesn't translate to anything tangible in my head. 

So once I figure out that the book wasn't going to help me as much as I thought it would I did the same thing I did when I wanted to learn how to crochet. I found a video on youtube. A series of videos actually. They are made by Vanessa at craftygemini.com. If you are a newbie like me I recommend you go to her channel on youtube and sort her videos by date added. Start at the beginning. She shares so much useful information from pressing -not ironing- to making cutting easier. I felt pretty confident just from watching her do it. She is a really good teacher. She doesn't just make it look easy. She so thoroughly and thoughtfully explains the steps that if you follow her and listen to all of her advice it becomes easy.

I have watched all of her videos and decided that her envelope pillow cover was going to be my first real project. I tried her bib one the minute I saw the video (before I watched them all) and I messed it up. I'll be making a new one soon though, now that I know a few things. 

So far I have made two of these covers. One for each of my two middle nieces, Erica and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was here spending the night when I made her pillow. She took off with it before I got a picture of it but I took a pic of a scrap of the fabric I used. Hers was a pink and black tiger print and Erica's is a purple (she calls it rockstar purple) leopard print. 

I am also going to make some Elvis Presly ones. I found some fabric in the $2 dollar bin that has Elvis in various poses from Jail House Rock on colored backgrounds. I'm going to get some plain black fabric to be the backs of these. My brother and my aunt are huge Elvis fans so they will be getting a set each.

I had to make the pillows that went with this project because I couldn't find any pillow forms. I cut two 13x13 inch pieces of fabric from some white cotton I had had forever. I stitched along all sides leaving an opening for stuffing. I stuffed then I hand sewed it shut. They aren't as flat and uniform as the ones you can buy ready made. I'm sure there is a way to make them flat and uniform but I dunno what it is. If anyone does leave me a comment please :D