DIY seat cushion lids for hanging file holders

Hi Everyone!
I hope you all had a great last day of school. I did! We always end the last day with a teacher talent show and it is so fun to dress up and be goofy for the kids. I wish I had pictures to share but I don't. :(

Gosh, it was so busy the last few weeks, I didn't even get to post about a project my mom and I completed about 2 weeks ago. I had seen this idea on a few blogs and wanted these so bad as seats for my guided reading table because they are multifunctional! Who doesn't love multifunctional!

I wanted to give the materials and directions that we came up with in case anyone was wanting to try to make their own.

Materials to make 6 seat cushion lids:
Wood glue
Staple gun
Hot glue gun
Measuring tape
18 x 5/8 wire brads
 28in of 54 inch wide fabric in 3 different colors ( I picked bright blue, pink and purple canvas)
1 yrd of 6 oz batting 
2 bags of fiberfill stuffing ( you could also use foam squares but they were never on sale)
(12) 3/8 Square Dowels cut into (8) pieces @ 17 1/2 length and (8) pieces @13 7/8 in length.
(3) 4 x 2 panel of wood 1/2 thick - I had Home Depot cut mine into (6) 14 3/4 in x 17 in  rectangles
If you don't have Home Depot cut all your wood, you will need a circular or table saw. I highly recommend using their free service!

Once all your pieces are cut to the correct measurements, you are ready to start!
Step 1: Use wood glue to attach dowels around the panel of wood. Then hammer a few wire brads into each side to ensure it is secure.

 Once the dowels are attached around the bottom, the lid should fit nicely over the hanging file holder without slipping.

Step 2: Now that the lid is built, you need to cut the fabric  and staple it to the dowels around the bottom. The easiest way for us was to place the batting and fabric in place, staple 3 sides securely, stuff and then staple the last side. As you can see here if you stuff it first, it becomes too much to manage.

Step 3: After the sides had all been stapled, I trimmed the fabric especially in the corners. You cannot have excess fabric in the corners or the lid will not fit. Once the fabric around the edges was trimmed, I hot glued all the fabric down in between the staples.

This is the finished product!

 I have 6 seat cushion lids altogether. 3 blue, 3 pink and 3 purple. I can't wait to use them next year!
Now I am looking to make over the seat folder/notebook holders. If anyone knows of a good way to DIY for those, I'd love to know how it was done.
Have a great weekend!