Nursery Makeover Part 2 - Flower Crib Canopy DIY

Crib Canopy

DIY Flower Crib Canopy
Materials Needed:
Curtains - 12.29
Embroidery Hoop - 3.80 (with coupon)
Ribbon - .99
Fishing Line - Free ( I already had some)
Flowers - Free (I already had a nice stash of flowers)
Hot Glue Gun - Free (I already owned a glue gun and several sticks of glue, but they are fairly inexpensive, and soooo useful!)

Total Spent: $17.08

When I was a little girl, I always wanted to feel like a princess with a castle in the clouds.  One weekend when I was away visiting family, my mom decorated mine and my sister's room.  We came home to a cloud room, with sheer material that draped gracefully around our beds.  We certainly felt like princesses in a fairytale castle!

When planning the nursery for my baby girl, I knew I wanted my daughter to also feel like a princess, with a canopy that wrapped her crib.  Thank goodness for Pinterest with so many adorable ideas and inspirations!  Unfortunately though, all of the premade canopies were VERY expensive (we're talking like $150+ for a decorative nursery item!), so I decided to make one myself - how hard could it be, right?

The first thing I had to do was find material to make the canopy.  I searched several of our local craft stores, Walmart, and Target, but finally settled on a set of Ikea curtains I found on Amazon for $12.29.  They are 98in long, which leaves plenty of room on either side of the crib.  Though they aren't exactly what I expected (they are almost a fish net material?) they will still work perfectly and were affordable - can't beat that!

Ikea Curtains

While I waited for the curtains to arrive I worked to find something to hang them from.  I looked into different wreath options, but finally decided on an embroidery hoop from Hobby Lobby.  The wonderful thing about Hobby Lobby is that they almost always offer a 40% off coupon on a regularly priced item.  However, the horrible thing about Hobby Lobby is that it is basically impossible to walk out of the store with only one item.  I am proud to say on this trip, I made the one purchase I walked into the store for - meaning I got this 20" embroidery hoop for under $4! And I make sure to remind my husband of this one victory any time he finds out I'm going to the craft store.

Once the curtains arrived, I carefully slid them onto the outer part of the embroidery hoop.  I had Tyler take a photo of me holding it up so I could get an idea what it looked like - hello comfy pregnancy clothes!

It took me a while to decide how I wanted to put the flowers on my canopy.  I was worried about using hot glue, because I was afraid it might melt the curtains, and I knew if I glued them directly onto the curtains, they would pull away slightly.  I decided instead to cut thin strips of extra fabric that I had, gluing them together to make a ribbon of sorts.  I then laid out the flowers I wanted to use on the makeshift ribbon, and began gluing the flowers to the ribbon.

Side Note:  My craft area is anything but Pinterest Perfect when I'm working.  I have about a million odds and ends that I experiment with to see what works best.  Also, the flowers I used for this project were all flowers that were purchased for decoration for my wedding (which was 2 years ago.)  I raided my personal stash in order to complete this project, and even swiped a couple from my mom's stockpile, so that definitely saved me a few dollars - thanks Mom!

Once I had glued all of the flowers onto the makeshift ribbon, I made sure the curtains were distributed evenly across the embroidery hoop, without any gaps.  I then enlisted the help of my husband, Tyler, to hold onto the hoop while I slowly worked my way around, hot gluing the flower ribbon to the hoop, except for the very end, where the hoop would need to be tightened.

After the glue had time to dry, I tied pink ribbon (which I purchased at Michael's on sale for $.99 a roll)  on the inside hoop of my embroidery hoop.  I chose to also crisscross ribbon in order to later hang flowers for a mobile.  Looking back, I wish I had added at least one more strand of ribbon to my crisscross for hanging flowers.

We carefully placed the inner hoop into the outer hoop, tightened the outer embroidery hoop, and finished gluing the flower ribbon across the back of the hoop.

The next part was probably the hardest for me, because I could not get the flowers to hang the way I wanted them to for the mobile.  I found some fishing line in our garage (thanks dad!)  The line I was originally going to use was a heavy duty fishing line, but it was too heavy and the flowers hung awkwardly.  I ended up going with a very light line, because I didn't need much to hold up the flowers.  I then took a sewing needle and attached a piece of fishing wire to several individual flowers.

I started hanging the flowers at random lengths from the crisscross ribbon I had tied onto the inner hoop of my embroidery hoop.  Of course I had to lay on the floor underneath the curtain so I could see what our daughter will see when she is laying in bed!

We considered hanging the canopy up last night, but it was WAY past this pregnant woman's bedtime, and I think I still want to add some pink ribbon to the outside of the canopy anyway.  As soon as my hubby has a chance to get a hook screwed into the ceiling, we will be able to hang this canopy over the crib, and we will be one step closer to completing our fairytale nursery!


*Coming Soon:
Nursery Makeover - Complete Reveal