I don't have much patience when it comes to my crafting. I like instant gratification. So normally I go gather my supplies and then come home and put it all together in the same day. Thankfully, I decided to not do that with this craft, and I split it up into two days.
I went to JoAnn Fabrics and got my fabric at 6.99 a yard, and I got 3 yards.
I also picked up a size 36 button covering kit, embroidery thread, and some big doll needles.
Next I went to Walmart. I probably could have picked up this at JoAnn's too but I thought I could get it cheaper at Walmart. I got three bags of 1/2 inch batting. It was for a full sized quilt. Some of the tutorials I read said that you could use a mattress topper. I think that this would work well because the foam would fill in the fabric well, but I couldn't find any that wasn't supper expensive for the amount I needed slash wanted.
Last I went to Home Depot. I picked up a piece of plywood and staples. I knew I would be insisting the help of my father in law who is a carpenter, and he recommended that I get 3/4 inch tongue and groove flooring plywood. If you were just going for the cheap option you could get one for about 10 dollars. We wanted to make sure that the board wouldn't warp at all, and would lay perfectly flat.
Fabric 20.97
Button Covering Kit 9.99
Embroidery Thread 3.99
Doll Needles 3.99
3 bags of batting 23.37
Plywood 18.87
Staples 3.22
Tax 5.06
Total 89.46
Justin thought that this was a lot of money for one of my DIY projects, but compared to the $500-$1000 price tag on some other ones I've seen, I thought I did pretty well.
First my father in law and I measured the width of my bed and cut off the extra on the plywood. Then we drew out the design we wanted and used a skill saw to cut the board. We saved the scraps to add the legs on later.
Then we measured where I wanted the buttons to go and drilled holes through the plywood.
After that I covered the board with batting. I got two layers out of each bag of batting. I left enough batting along the outside of the board to be able to staple it underneath.
After I got it all stapled I realized my fabric was only 45 inches wide and I didn't cut the board down on that side. I had to un staple the bottom and cut off a couple of inches.
Then I laid the fabric on top and stapled that over the edges too. I worked piece by piece pulling it tight around the edges, and cutting strips into the circular parts to get it to lay as flat as possible.
Now it was time for the buttons. The button covering kit is pretty easy. Once I had all of the buttons covered in the fabric I had my sister help me sew them on. We propped the board up between us. I doubled up the embroidery thread and sent it through one of the holes I had previously drilled out on the back of the headboard. When the needle came through the front my sister put the button on and sent the needle back through to me. I put a washer on the thread and pulled it as tight as possible, made a knot, and cut off the extra. Some of the tutorials I read said that you could just staple the thread to the back of the board but I couldn't get it tight enough and the thread kept loosening. The washers worked well. You probably don't need to use as big of washers as I did, but it's what we had on hand.
The last part was the legs. I used a piece of the scraps. I wanted the headboard to sit 18 inches off the ground, and we just screwed it in.
Lastly we sprayed it with some scotch guard just to keep anything from staining.
It was quite the project and took a lot longer than expected but I really like how it turned out!
