Today’s contributor is Jill from Snugglebug University. All posts written by Jill for Make It and Love It can be found HERE.
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Hi, it’s Jill from Snugglebug University. Today I’m excited to show you how to make a super easy bed canopy for your child’s bed!
Last year we moved my kids into a different bedroom in the house so that they’d have more space…and we promised them that their new room would get a makeover to their liking. A bed canopy was on the top of my youngest daughter’s wish list! I’m so happy that I’ve finally gotten to checking it off my “to-do” list. It only took a year!
I thought it might be fun to have the bed canopy look like it was being held up by something. After watching the movie Cinderella, I had an “ah hah!” moment. Birds!!! Of course. So I made four stuffed birds to hold up the canopy.
These birds are super sweet, and I love that they’d make a great mobile too. They’d even make great stuffed pets!
These birds come together pretty quickly with the template that I have to share with you, but what I really like about this project is that it could be easily adapted to use stuffed animals that you already have around your house.
For example, wouldn’t it be cool to replace the bed canopy with a “fishing net” and have various sea creatures suspend the canopy from the ceiling? Or what about owls or other animals to make a camping theme? Or what about using stuffed butterflies? There are so many possibilities!
I’d love to hear what variations you come up with for both boys and girls!
My little girl loves her pastel blue birds and lovely bed canopy in her newly painted pink room….and I hope you love this project too…because it’s such a fun one!
Are you ready to get started? Here’s what you’ll need…
Supplies:
***As always, if you need a bit of help with the basic sewing skills used in this tutorial, don’t hesitate to check out the Sewing 101 post for more help.
Let’s begin:
Cut out a large rectangle of fabric for the canopy. Begin by sewing the pom-poms onto the sheer fabric. Set aside.
Use the template to cut out all of the pieces for the bird.
Attach the eye pieces to each side of the bird front by hand.
Then sew the two beak pieces together and set aside. I just used a simple whip stitch to attach the two pieces together. Need help with hand sewing? Check out this post!
Set the body pieces aside. Cut out the stabilizer using the template and fuse the stabilizer to the wrong side of the wing.
**A note about using a heavy-weight stabilizer: To attach the Peltex to your fabric, follow the directions that come with the stabilizer. Basically, put shiny adhesive side on wrong side of fabric. Iron on fabric side (not Peltex side). Iron on high, putting pressure as you iron. Cover with a damp cloth and press firmly for 10-15 seconds, lift and move to next area until the entire area is adhered. Remove damp cloth and iron to remove extra moisture.
Then place the right sides of the wings together, and sew them together by sewing around the edges of the wing, leaving the top open. Avoid sewing on the stabilizer, because if you sew on it with a regular needle you may break it.
Turn right side out, and then press. If you have two sided fusible interfacing, you can iron at this point to fuse the other side of the stabilizer to the other side of the wing.
Make the other wing the same way as you made the first wing.
Set aside the wings. Placing the right sides of the body and tummy pieces together, sew the bird’s tummy to one of the bird’s sides. (Sew from the chin of the bird to the tail. This is the bottom edge in the picture below.)
Now we’re going to sew the remaining bird side to the other side of the bird’s tummy. Place the right sides together.
This time though we’re going to leave a large “gap” when we sew. This will be how you turn your bird right side out when you’ve finished sewing up all the other sides. You can see how the bottom portion (up to the tail) is left open.
Next we’re going to sew up the rest of the bird, but first we have to position then wings and the beak between the two bird sides. The wings conveniently stick out the base of the bird (where the hole was left open for turning).
Sew from the tail all around to the bird’s chin, securing the wings and the beak into your seam.
Turn your bird right side out. It should look like this.
Sew up the base of your bird by hand, with a blind stitch. Need help with hand sewing? Check out this post.
And that finishes your bird! All you have left to do is add the plastic rings (which will be used to attach the bird to the canopy, and to the ceiling.)
I just attached the plastic rings to the bird by hand as well.
Then I tied the invisible cord to the hook which is used to attach the bird to the ceiling.
The last step is to sew a corner of the bed canopy to the ring on the bird by hand. I just pinched a corner and sewed it into the ring. That’s it!
If you’d like to see more details from my kids’ room, click on over to my blog today! You might also like some of my other DIY’s for my kids’ room, like this house pillow, these fabric butterflies, this fabric wall art, and these painted drawer knobs.
Thank you so much for having me here on Make It and Love It!
–Jill
You can follow Jill on her blog (snugglebuguniversity.com), on instagram, on pinterest, and on facebook.
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Making a bedroom magical for our children an be so rewarding! Helping create a special place just for them and watching their eyes light up when they see it is a special kind of joy. Check out these other great ideas for decorating your child’s room:
10 Adorable Kids Bedroom Decorating Ideas
14 Absolutely Adorable Nursery Ideas
Hi, I’m Ashley—the DIY-enthusiast behind this crazy blog!
