A Gum Drop Pillow

A few weeks ago I stopped at a new-to-me quilt shop for some thread, and found a few Gum Drop Pillows made up. I picked up this pattern for a dollar when a lqs was closing a few years ago, but never saw the pillows in real life. Well, after one look at them, I was full of ideas for fabric combinations!
We could use some sort of ottoman/extra seating in our living room, and I thought one of these would be fun in some Summersault. First I wanted to make a prototype, so I pulled out my Castle Peeps stash and sewing up this fun pillow for Addy!

I found the pattern really easy to work with, though I did make 1 small alteration. I added a zipper in one of the seams, which is really handy for stuffing the pillow...and restuffing if it flattens a bit! I also thought I could pull the stuffing out and wash the cover if need be.

I'm hoping to start on the pillow for the living room soon, but first I'm going to research my stuffing options. Fiberfil is not dense enough for the pillow to be used as a seat or a footrest, yet the bean bag chair filler is really pricey!
A bonus to the pattern: if you don't stuff it full, it makes a great bean bag chair! My dog enjoyed the half-stuffed pillow for several days before I had a chance to buy more fiberfil. I'm thinking about making the dogs their own pillow out of a laminate. Easy wipe down and dog hair won't stick to it!

Editing to add: I hated how the poly-fil made the pillow lumpy with use, so I made a liner for the pillow and filled the liner with styrofoam bean bag filler. The pillow is much more comfy and visually appealing now! (I used a liner so that if the pillow outer happens to come unzipped, I won't have a mess of tiny styrofoam balls all over my house!)