Has your child outgrown his/her crib, or is a neighbor, friend, or relative trying to get rid of one? If you have a large dog, keep the crib mattress and get ready to find out how to go from crib mattress to dog bed, with an added no sew DIY cover.

I don’t know about you, but having a large dog has definitely been a learning experience. Going from having dogs under 20 lbs, to one that is 70 lbs, has been interesting, but so much fun. Recently however, my big boy was diagnosed as having arthritis in one of his knees. While we’ve started a regime for him, I’ve noticed that he would get stiff laying on his bed and would limp off of it when he would get up. So I decided I needed to find him a good orthopedic dog bed. As I looked at the various options available, I realized a lot of the ones labeled as orthopedic still felt like regular old dog beds. And I don’t know about you, but to date, I’ve spent a lot of money on dog beds. They just don’t last the wear and tear of my babies. When they were younger they loved to un-stuff everything, so that was a problem. But now they tear them because they like to dig into the beds to make them comfier before they lay down.

So I decided to go to a few places to check out my options and ran across an orthopedic dog bed made my a mattress company. That peaked my interested and I thought, why not look at possibly getting my baby a small orthopedic mattress. Thus came my crib mattress to dog bed idea.

Since everyone I know still has crib aged kids, I knew I had to go buy a new one and I didn’t mind because once I looked at the prices, they were very similar to the price I’d pay for an orthopedic dog bed, but it was bigger, sturdier, and would probably last longer, so I bought one. I also looked at crib sheets, but I could totally see my dogs digging holes in the material because it’s just too light to stand up to their digging ways, so I decided I would just make my own cover out of more sturdier material I had at home, and I did.

You’ll need:

2 yards of fabric (I used durable all-weather fabric for easy clean up) scissors iron fusible bonding web velcro (with adhesive back) or fabric ties

Directions:

Once you have your fabric, I recommend you not to cut it at all. Just lay the fabric down, lay the crib mattress on top, and wrap it around the mattress as you think best. This leaves you with only 3 sides to hem, vs. 4, which is already a win.

Now you’re ready to run a line of fusible bonding web along two sides (1 & 3 from image above) and iron them in place. Make sure the iron’s hot, as heat is required to form the bond.

Now two edges of the cover are hemmed and I left the last edge (2 on the previous image) unbonded because I wanted the option of taking off the cover and washing it if needed.

As such, I realized I could leave it open like a pillow case; cut small matching holes on either side of material and thread fabric through the holes to tie it up with knots (which you can totally choose to do to all open sides); or add velcro to the flap for closure (again, which you can totally do for all the open sides). I chose the velcro option. I laid the velcro pieces across the opening, with both the hook (the rough side) and loop (the softer side) laying on top of each other to make sure they matched up when attached, pealed the back to stick them on, and done.

And voila, I had successfully taken the crib mattress to dog bed and even made a no sew DIY cover, in no time flat.

To prove it, here’s a quick video to show just how quickly it goes.

SEW ALERT – If you have diggers like I do and have a needle and thread handy, I suggest you add a little hand stitching or machine stitching at least every 3-4 inches to add a little extra security to the bonding and to the velcro edges to make sure they stay on. But if you don’t, don’t worry. The bonding should stay on as is.

I will admit that my big boy had no idea how to get comfy on his new roomy digs the first night, but once I threw one of his old dog beds on top, he figured it out and night two he even began to sprawl out on his bed and snore away.

Plus now, when gets out of his new bed, there’s no major limping, which let’s me know this was the best thing for him.

What DIY project have you had to take on to keep your furbaby happy?