DIY Nursery Bedding and Window Panels

UPDATE:  SEE FULL NURSERY TOUR HERE.

Baby Boy #2's nursery was all about keeping to a budget and to do so, I:

(1) Re-purposed and reused items from around my house
(2) DIY'd several projects (including the map nursery wall letters, Restoration Hardware inspired drapes, bedding, and sailboat mobile)
(3) and relied heavily on thrift store finds for finishing touches

For me, the most challenging project, by far, was the bedding:

I started the nursery by searching for inspiration around the web, and finally settled on a yellow and grey color scheme. 

I searched and searched, and kept coming up short for bedding that matched my vision.  Sure, Serena and Lily and other semi-custom sites had some great options.  However, I was not ready to spend $300 plus on a crib bedding set!  It proved more difficult than I had imagined finding mix and match bedding at a reasonable price point. 

One day, while browsing Honey and Fitz, I came across her blog post re: her son Knox's nursery bedding.  She used this tutorial to sew the bumper and created her own bed skirt.  I have NEVER in my life sewn, but it seemed like something I wanted to try.  My mother in law has a sewing machine and I thought she would be able give me some tips. 

Amazingly, with the help of a 40 minute tutorial from my mother in law and the use of her sewing machine, I pulled it together:

Notes on sewing the bumper:

The tutorial I used is really useful and quite detailed so I wouldn't add much by creating my own step by step here.  Besides, I made this bedding about 10 months ago and wasn't blogging at the time, so I wouldn't have pictures to add.  However I have a few thoughts if you want to use this tutorial:

• read through the comments at the bottom; it's likely if you have a question about the tutorial it was asked before.
• the hardest part, for me, was to measure accurately and to make sure the pattern of the fabric would be level.  I was worried any little flaw would stand out with such a geometric pattern.  As it turned out, the geometric pattern really worked to my advantage because I measured my lines up to the tops and bottoms of the boxes. 
• I really wish I had made the bows bigger. My recommendation would be to double the width of the bows per the crib bumper tutorial.
• This is a very time intensive project - the sewing is not the time intensive part.  It was the measuring and cutting of the fabric that was the hard part.  I realized, while pulling this project together, why etsy shops charge so much for their custom bedding. 

I ordered enough of the geometric pattern to create a bed skirt and affix a panel to a pair of IKEA Merete Panels, ($25 for both panels) similar to the Restoration Hardware Canvas Stripe Drape ($109 per panel) used in my Nursery Inspiration Board:

 



In total, for the bedding, curtains and supplies (thread, scissors, rulers, fabric glue, needles, pins, etc), I spent about $150 as follows:

$48 Gotcha Storm Geometric Pattern (I ordered too much and have a decent amount left over, oops!)

$40 JoAnne Fabric and Supplies
$20 Walmart Bumper Inserts
$16 Babies R US Crib Sheets (2)
$26 IKEA Panels

Now that I have a little confidence with the seweing machine, I think I will have to give home made sweater stockings a try!

Check out my DIY nursery letters here:

Thanks for visiting!  

Linking to: Southern Hospitality Blog / Craftberry Bush