Crafty Chloe Doll Bed

It's no secret that I love Heather Ross—her fabric, her illustrations, her patterns—so, it's no surprise that I ordered Crafty Chloe for Louisa as soon as it came out. The book is FANTASTIC. And, it inspired me (and Louisa) to do a little crafty crafting of our own, for Lou's twin friends who celebrated a birthday last weekend.

At the end of the book Chloe gives her friend Emma a doll bed she makes out of a clementine crate. There are instructions from Heather (via the Martha Stewart Show) on the Crafty Chloe website. We decided to give the twins their own copy of Crafty Chloe and a homemade pink doll bed, just like Emma's.

Like Chloe, I also came up with this idea the afternoon before the party. We stopped by the local hardware/paint store a few minutes before five and got 16 paint stirrer sticks and a can of pink spray paint. Thanks, Blue Ridge Builders Supply!

I didn't have any clementine crates on hand, but I did have a slightly smaller crate that something came packaged in a long time ago, and which I had used for several things. It was a little dirty, but the perfect size. I measured how high the four posts and foot and end boards should be, and cut down the paint sticks.

I scored them with an xacto knife on both sides, and then broke them by hand. It worked better than using my kitchen shears, although that is the way Heather does it in the video.

I sanded them and lined them up, then glued them together with Elmer's wood glue with a shorter cross piece. After they sat for a while, I glued the assembled foot and end boards to the crate, careful that it sat squarely on all four corners, and pressed it under a book overnight.

In the morning I primed it with a spray primer, and then gave it two coats of pink, with about an hour in between each application. I wish I had sanded the writing off the sticks better, and had put the store's imprint on the outside where it wouldn't have been as noticeable. It was hard to spray the insides (mattress facing) without creating drips.

(Here you can see where the stick's logos are still visible—oh well.)

I didn't have supplies or time to make a mattress, but I sewed a ruffled pillow and a small quilt with scraps from my stash.

I used masking tape to mark diagonal stitch lines for the quilting, bound it with a bit of store-bought bias tape that I had on hand, and mitered the corners.

I made a little banner by cutting little triangles with my pinking shears and sewing them to a thin scrap of rick rack. I stamped each of the twin's initials on it to hint that it was meant to be co-owned.

The whole project cost me under $5, since the only thing I had to purchase was the pink spray paint.

Lou was super proud. She also made them each a card and helped wrap. :)

P.S. Speaking of Heather Ross... I am going to her Weekend Sewing Workshop in New York this October! Can. Not. Wait! I signed up the day she announced it.