Bolstered Bumper Pillows

The littlest lady of the house has moved into a lovely twin bed, but what hasn't been so pretty is that she's fallen and gotten stuck between the bed and bed rails on more than one occasion.

There's nothing else but that sort of cry in the middle of the night to sit me straight up in bed and send me running in two seconds flat!

Mr. G's solution was to borrow her brother's large stuffed animals

and snug them up against the bed rails.

This worked well, but for one thing. There was precious little room left in the bed for my growing toddler! Of course, it doesn't look very good either. Never mind that the bed rails are ugly... I have an idea that I may slipcover those too. Is that crazy?

This fabric was bought for a song at the PA Fabric Outlet,

and despite some variation in the printing, I fell in love with it.

I decided to sew bolster bumper pillows to sit along the bed rails. I measured the width of the twin bed frame and mattress, and decided to make the length of the bolster pillows equal to that width.

My thinking was that the pillows could be used at the head and foot

of the bed when the bed rails are gone.

After sewing the tubes sown the long side, I then stuffed the pillows

and stitched the ends together as tightly as I could.

Our milk is delivered to our door in glass jugs by a great little farm known as Apple Valley Creamery. This seemed a great opportunity to reuse the bottle caps as bolster buttons! I simply cut out material in circles that would wrap around the bottle caps. Then I padded the bottle caps with a piece of old sock, wrapped the material circle around and sewed.

Finished bottle caps turned bolster buttons:

Next, the hard part!! I groaned through this part, and for all my effort it didn't produce the effect I was hoping for. But, I'll show you anyway so you can avoid my mistakes!

Run a long straight something through the pillow. I used a dowel.

With both ends of the dowel sticking out, I taped thread to one end, and knotted the other end of the thread securely to that same end of the bolster pillow. 

Then I pulled the dowel through, with the thread tagging along. Lastly, and most painfully, I pulled the thread as tight as I could so as to make the pillow pucker in on the ends, and sewed and knotted the thread on that end of the bolster pillow.

Then I stitched the buttons on.

Alas, this is where the results left me wanting more.

There was no pucker, no indentation for the buttons to sit in. 

I think part of it was the material I used- it should have been a heavier duty string.

Also, I probably should have attached the string to the buttons and had the buttons pulling against each other. Oh well! I'm not doing that again! Cute enough for me!

So here they are in place with the gorgeous blue bed rails. Ha!

I am not a lover of all things pink, but having a little girl is getting me there! 

The Knit, Crochet and Give Away ministry at church gave this pretty pink blanket to us when she was born. It's the perfect weight for a light cover in summer and layering in winter.

There is something so special about handmade!

When the bed rails are gone, this is how we can put the bolster pillows to work

to cover the gap between the mattress and headboard.

 There was even enough material left over to sew a slipcover

for a little pillow that always seems to be hanging around in her room.

Add this pretty pillow update to her lovely "new" dresser and the under bed diaper storage system I now use, and I feel like this room is coming together!

Sharing my delight with the cutest bolster pillows ever...

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