Nursery Bedding

The crib skirt is finally finished! I say finally because I have had the fabric since early March and the crib skirt just made its way onto the crib. Now don't go thinking that I have some crazy, complicated crib skirt that took 3 months to construct. Nope, I'm just terrible at sewing and had to wait until my back-up (aka Brettany) could come help me. She did all the hard work - I just did the SUPER important things like measuring and ironing. Seriously, I can't even be trusted to pin a hem.

But enough about how lame I am. Let's marvel over my crib skirt!

Yum. It's crisp and clean. The fabric is fun and kid-friendly without being tacky or overdone. Let's marvel at the close-up:



That, my friends, is a pattern from Amy Butler's spring collection. What nursery doesn't need a little Amy Butler?

But wait, there's more! This simple crib skirt has some tricks up its sleeves. Bedding can have sleeves, right? Because my crib is adjustable, the crib skirt has to be adjustable too. As baby gets taller the mattress platform can be lowered to offer more containment protection, which means the crib skirt has to get shorter. Yes, I could re-hem it each time, but then I can't re-use it for baby #2 further down the road.

Enter my dear friend velcro. Instead of making a traditional crib skirt that is built like a dust ruffle, we made 3 flat fabric panels - left, right and front - that are attached to the mattress platform with velcro squares. Then we added additional "receiving" velcro on the platform so I can move the panel inward, effectively shortening it without having to cut it when it's time to adjust the mattress height. So simple.

I should probably point out that I could have done this project, on my own, without a sewing machine if I used iron on hemming tape, but that isn't as durable after multiple washings. Since it's always a safe bet that anything in a nursery will need to be washed at some point, I took Brettany's advice and had her sew it for me.

Brettany, being the wonderful friend that she is, had set aside a whole day to help me sew and after the crib skirt was complete we still had plenty of time and fabric to use. The original plan was to make a crib bumper, but we realized those take a lot of work. And they might not even be necessary.* It just seemed like too much trouble for something that may or may not be purely aesthetic, so we scrapped that idea.

Not wanting my fabulous and expensive fabric go to waste, I had the idea of buying a wicker basket and creating a simple liner to turn it into a laundry hamper. So that's what we did. We picked up a Smith & Hawken basket (on sale!) from Target on our lunch/errands break and, with less than 2 hours of sewing, we had a laundry hamper in no time!

As you can see, it's nice and roomy but it's not too big for a baby-sized laundry pile. The liner bag is a 5-sided cube with just enough wiggle room to fold the top over for a nice finished edge. Plus, the liner is removable - and washable - in case we get some seriously dirty laundry going on.

And how cute is the "laundry" tag? The little placard came attached to the basket and, with no more than some acrylic paint and a tiny brush, Brettany had this labeled in only a few minutes! No, I'm not completely helpless, but her handwriting is much nicer than mine.

Here you can see my adorable hamper in its new home next to the changing table.

So there you have it. My DIY crib skirt and laundry hamper that only took on afternoon of sewing!

*I've read lots of (potentially fear mongering) articles about how crib bumpers are just evil things waiting to strangle or suffocate your helpless baby. Yes, they help prevent baby from bumping his head on the crib rails, but once baby is mobile enough to be head-bumping he is also mobile enough to detach the bumper and fall prey to its evil powers. I don't really know how I feel about all that, but I wasn't so attached to the idea of a bumper that it seemed worth it to me. If it's really a problem, I'll buy one in the future.