Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Pillow Pet

It's only taken me a couple of days with the dog to realize that she's not a fan of sleeping on the floor. We've decided to have a "no dog on sofas/beds" policy here though, so in between lots of "down" and "no," she's been getting cuddly on the sheepskin rug in our bedroom.



Since we're now Rudy's official new family (yay!!), I wanted to set her up with a proper bed that she could snuggle into and make her own, so I browsed Petsmart and Petco and Target, but didn't really see anything I would be happy to add to our home decor, didn't have the time to browse the smaller pet shops, and didn't have the patience to order something online. So of course I wondered (as those who know me well would expect) how hard could it be to make my own dog bed?

I thought about using foam or stuffing, but decided that pillows would probably be easier and not much more expensive, so I picked up two extra firm pillows on sale at Target for $5 a pop.






Then I overlapped them slightly and sewed the edges together:




...and stitched them together in the middle for extra strength:


To fill in the the extra space between the pillows I rolled up two hand towels:



...and then to protect the pillows from any doggy mess that might occur, I wrapped it all up in a waterproof mattress cover left over from when we needed to cover the kids' beds at night. I secured the edges with a few safety pins for now, but might add buttons later to make sure my pooch doesn't get an accidental pinch if one of these opens up.


Now that the insert was done, I moved on to the cover. I had two brown faux fur throw blankets left over from the kids' old room decor that were gathering dust in our linen closet, and when I laid one out under the pillows it was a perfect fit. I folded it in half inside out and sewed it closed up one long side and across one end, leaving the other short end open to insert the big pillow pile. After much deliberating I left that short end open and just folded and tucked the extra blanket material inside so I can easily remove the cover for washing.

I think it's a hit!

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