Reading Poufs (aka Floor Cushions)

My brother and sister-in-law moved into a new house right before Thanksgiving, and my brother built his two girls rain gutter bookshelves like the ones below.

Since the girls now have a reading nook, I decided that they needed poufs to sit on as they read on the floor. I found this tutorial online, and I think mine turned out pretty well!

It was so funny to watch the girls (who are only 4 and 1.5 years old mind you) pick their poufs and become immediately possessive about whose was whose. If I ever make these again I would do a few things differently, so hopefully you will find these helpful too.

• I bought more "inner fluff" than I thought I would need, and I ended up using every bit of the 5 lbs (2.5lbs/pouf). Use more fluff than you think you need. (I also used two 15-pound kettle bells as my 30 pound child to test the resilience of the fluff.)
• If you use extra fluff like I did you may want to reinforce the stitching of the middle part of the pouf because a single stitch seam tends to pull and possibly rip.
• Actually, just reinforce all of the stitches. I wasn't expecting my 4 year old niece to pretend the pouf was a horse and bounce around holding the handle as reins. (I know. WHY did I not see that one coming?!) She came to me crying because she found a hole where the stitches had pulled out of the fabric. Thankfully Aunt Anna is a whiz at hand-mending just about anything.  :)

When all was said and done each pouf only ended up costing me about $20 to make thanks to some great JoAnn coupons, and I will definitely make these again for other little ones in my life. If you decide to make a pouf, let me know if you have any questions - I'd love to help!