Big girl bed!

Elsa just turned 27 months and is such a skinny little bean pole, taking after her daddy. She was definitely tall enough to swing her leg up and get out of her crib (although luckily never tried it) and I was afraid she was going to do so any second and hurt herself, so we decided it was time to make the conversion from crib to toddler bed. She's going to be sleeping in non-cribs at the grandparents' houses over the holidays, so switching now also gives us some time to get her used to it.

Her awesome little Sniglar crib from IKEA converts to a toddler daybed with one side removed and a thick bar in it's place. I took charge of the conversion while Jeff hosted guests at the Long Beach Open Studio tour this weekend, and converted the bed and sewed up some bedding for her. Every big girl bed needs a real pillow and a duvet me thinkest.



I got her toddler comforter insert and toddler pillow insert from The Land of Nod which just opened up down here. It's a down alternative but super snuggly. A little pricey but it's good quality and she'll be in this bed for a few years, plus I was saving money by making her bedding which can be stupid expensive at these cute baby stores.

I made the duvet cover and pillow case from a vintage flat sheet with a sweet floral pattern, and a white flat sheet with little white polka dots from one of our own sheet sets. We never use the flat sheets in a set, just a fitted one and our duvet so the flat sheets become great yardage to use for sewing projects. The vintage sheet even had a piping seam detail that I incorporated into the duvet and used at the faux-seam on the pillowcase, adding a nice detail for no extra work at all! I also used the finished edge on each of the sheets on the side of the duvet that would have the opening to put in the comforter so I wouldn't have to finish it myself. I'm so smart/lazy.

I got this sewing book, Baby Stuff, back when I was pregnant and had flagged this sleeping friends pattern to make for Elsa when it was time for a toddler duvet. It is so sweet, and was easy to do once I gave up on the idea of folding over the appliques a half-inch (pain in the butt to do when it's a curved seam, you gotta notch that stuff out to make it curve) and then hand-stitching them on. I was seriously getting ready to ship it to my mom and ask her to do it instead (she is too good with details like this, me- notsomuch), when I thought of just zig-zag stitching them on instead. I used thread that matched the friends, and set the stitch to be super close, and zipped along attaching them all to the front cover in less than an hour. The hand-embroidered faces took about 30 minutes, and that was just from having to thread the needle so many times.

The worst part about this project was sewing on the buttons for the closure, but even that wasn't bad. My machine does great buttonholes, and I hand sewed on the 7 buttons which gave me a hand cramp, but I like the look of them so much more than velcro or ties.    

When we showed her the bed last night she was SO excited. She hopped right in and got under the covers and said "COMFY!! COZY!!" After we tucked her in, she got out about five minutes later and said "MOORING (morning)!" to me in the living room. She got tucked back in, a book read to her by mom, and then another by dad, lights off and she was out. As far as we know, she stayed in bed the whole night and didn't fall out (we wedged my pregnancy body pillow under the crib to make a padded transition from the mattress to the rug in case she rolled out) and got herself up at 7:15 and padded in to our room to wake us up. My little alarm clock. :)

Nap time went well too! We got this in the bag. As my dad says, next up- potty training. Eesh.