How To Make A Dog Bed Tutorial Upcycling Materials Around the House

It's been a long time since I've posted anything to this blog.  Life has gotten really busy homeschooling 5 kids, and homesteading too.  But it was time to make a new dog bed, and someone asked me how to do it.  So, that is why I am making this tutorial.  I hope it is helpful to anyone looking to make a dog bed from upcycled materials you may already have.

Materials:

-I used a piece of foam taken from my baby diaper changing table.  Sized 35"x19"x2"

-An old throw blanket (a corner was ripped) 48"x60"

-40lb chicken feed bag

-50lb dog food bag

-3" wide duct tape

With 5 kids it seems like I always have a good amount of supplies to work with.  Each time I do laundry I look for t-shirts with stains or holes that I can cut into rags.  Sometimes those rags have been used to stuff a dog bed, when my rag drawer is overfilled.  Usually I use an old foam mattress topper.  I believe the last one I made was 3 years ago. You can see a photo of that dog bed at the very end of this post.  It was not an outdoor bed.  That bed just got tossed out last year when Nella used it for her 2nd year in a row.  Smitty passed away 3 years ago next month.  We miss him very much.  There are links to two other posts I made regarding homemade dog beds at the bottom of this post.

Hidey wants to keep it for her own.

This is the piece of foam my husband bought to go in the diaper changing table he built for our babies.  He made it several years ago.  I had made a waterproof fitted sheet for it, that is lost.  But I did still have a fitted cover for it that I decided to put on it.  Since I made it specifically for this, so no sense in trying to keep it for something else.  Might as well let them stay together.

Hidey really does not want to let Nella have it. 

The first thing I did was cover it in old feed sacks.  I keep them for trash bags, when we clean up the yard or workshop, and other various uses such as this.  I like using the feed sacks that are made from tarp like material, because overtime it gets "broken in".  Meaning, it gets less crinkly sounding and more pliable, and more like fabric.  While retaining the ability to keep stinky moisture out of the foam.  This way, at the end of the winter season I can simply remove the cloth outer layer, wipe the bed down and store it in the shed until next winter.  Then I will recover it with whatever old blanket or towels we are ready to get rid of at the time.  

First I put the chicken feed bag on because it is smaller.  It still fits well enough, but a little snug.

Next I used the 50lb dog food bag.  I just happened to have this bag due to someone donating this food to us because we take in a lot of stray dogs until we can find their owner or a new home.  We do not use this food though.  There are a lot of scary reviews for this food on the Consumer Reports website, so we try to steer clear of it if we can.  However, I am grateful to have this bag today.

In an effort to add a little extra layer of moisture protection I sealed the bags together with 3" wide duct tape.  

Now I fold the blanket in half and sew it together leaving one of the short ends open to make it like a pillowcase.

I used this stitch.  A wide zig zag stitch will suffice if you don't have this particular one on your machine.

I used about 5/8 inch seam allowance because I have plenty of room in this cover to spare.  A wide seam allowance will be a little more secure than trying to keep it close to the edge.

Finally, slide the bed inside of the cover and sew up the open end.

Here is the finished product, inside of her dog house.  It will be more flat when she gets in there.  I have no desire to crawl in there and pat it down. lol

 I tried to get a picture of her in it, but it's only 26 degrees tonight and she would much rather play in the snow and bark at the coyotes and other farm dogs in the distance.  But it's in there waiting for her when she's ready.  It's supposed to get down to 17 degrees tomorrow night, so she'll probably use it then.  Tonight she's just hanging out on the top of the dog house and running around her kennel. 

 We keep our Great Pyrenees kenneled next to the chicken coop because she is dedicated strictly to watching over the chickens. If she has too much area to patrol, on her own, the chicken coop might get infiltrated.  We hope to get more livestock and another livestock guardian dog this spring.

Thank you for checking out my blog page. 

Please leave a comment and share your own dog bed pictures or links.

Sincerely, Steph

Other dog bed tutorials I've done:

http://bymamawithlove.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-dog-beds.html

http://bymamawithlove.blogspot.com/2009/12/lalehs-new-bed.html

This was my favorite dog bed that I've made so far.  I made Delsin and Enoch Cowboy bedding and curtains and this bed to match for Smitty, because he became an inside dog during his last days.  He slept in the boys room the most.  I made a great tutorial for it, but blogger's phone app was having problems and kept deleting it.  They no longer have a phone app, and I no longer have this tutorial to share.  But if I ever make another one similar to it I will make a tutorial again.

New Dog Beds

 I decided to take a night off of bishop dress making and make something else.  I needed to make some diapers, but the temperatures have dropped and the wind has picked up a little and my outside dogs that have been kicked back outside to protect Henrietta and the garden are scratching at the door to come in to a warm bed.  So I made a couple of dog beds for them.

 We recently put the outside dogs back outside, along with Henrietta.

We'd been letting them sleep inside over the winter months.  It doesn't get too cold for them to stay outside, here where I live, (low 20's) but I miss them and Smitty misses sleeping in the house sometimes too.

Usually we put their beds in the mud room area by the back door and put a child gate up to keep Smitty and Prince separated.  Otherwise it can get real hairy when those two get sick of each other.

Well, this year, by the time they got put back outside, their beds, that had been stuffed with fabric scraps, had been ripped up and were nothing but a heap of fabric scraps.  

I was planning on making new covers and stuffing the scraps all into them, but when I wasn't looking my husband threw them all in the trash.  I didn't complain.  He expected me to, but I knew that I had let those scraps lay there too long to say anything.  He was justified in throwing everything out.

Anyway, we had some foam rubber you might remember seeing in the photos of me organizing the fabric room. It was an old mattress that boasted memory foam technology.  We slept on it for a few years, then it became part of the guest bed.  Finally, I talked my husband into cutting it into rectangular pieces, for me.

I had been planning on making some new dog beds out of those pieces anyway.  

This was my perfect chance.  The pieces that I used were 36" x 28".

I bought this fabric at a neighborhood yard sale, one day.

Ever met someone who was addicted to buying fabric?

I'm one of those people.

This 100% polyester fabric is hideous.  It's really thick, so I'm thinking it'll be hard to rip.  Smitty is one of those dogs that can't lay down till he's scratched and scratched at the bed for 2 or 3 minutes, first.  That's how all the beds get torn.  I must admit that duck cloth and canvas seem indestructible, to him, but I wanted to get rid of this ugly fabric, so I've put those other dog bed covers away for now.

I cut it down the middle making it 72" x 48".

Then I folded it in half (right sides together) to make it  36" x 48" and I sewed two sides, leaving one short side open.

I'm using cotton thread and I know how rough Smitty is on a bed, so I put a stitch at 3/4" and then did another stitch at 1/2", for more durability.

Turn it right side out.

Slip it over your piece of foam.

Now usually I would do a hook and loop closure, but I decided, in the spirit of laziness, to just stitch the open side closed.  I'm OK with this because I made the stitch at 3 in length instead of 2.5, so that it'll be a little easier to take out when I want to wash the cover, provided the opening doesn't get ripped open by the scratching before settling routine Smitty has.  I may add hook and loop closure to it when that day comes.  Depends on how I feel and how satisfied I am with the quality of this idea.

Voila!  I went out there to give it to sweet Betsy, but she is so sweet that she just let Smitty have it. 

So I thought I'd let her share the next one in the larger dog house, with her sister.

However, she was so sweet as to let Delilah have it all to herself. 

So Betsy got to come in the house and sleep on the dog bed that's on the floor next to my bed. I say "got to",but I had to beg her to come in.  I was so surprised when none of the dogs wanted to come in.  They all wanted to sleep on their new beds.  That makes me smile.

Tomorrow I'll clean out the dog house that the chicken has taken over and put one of the old beds stuffed with some old scraps, for a day or two to see if Henrietta is going to keep going in there.  I have a feeling we are going to need more dog houses.

I have an order for a custom made bed that I'll be working on once I get the Easter dresses finished.  I may post pictures of that one when I get it finished.

Laleh's new bed

A few months ago a friend of mine brought me a bag full of clothes she no longer wanted. The bag she brought them in was a gift wrap bag from Target.com, from when she got a baby shower present. I made this dog bed out of that gift bag.

Actually, I made this dog bed slip cover out of that bag.

The inside is a pillow I made out of an old padded mattress cover for the shell, and the stuffing is pollyfill from an old frog chair that had rips and chocolate milk stains.

It's approximately 6 inches thick.

It's really comfy & getting enjoyment from every animal in the house, and even the kids. ☺

Here's the tutorial.  Sorry I didn't take pictures.  The tutorial was an after thought.

*Decide how large you want the bed to be and cut that size circle out of your fabric.
You need to cut 4 of these.
*Cut a strip of fabric 8 inches thick and long enough to go around the circumference of your circles.
You need two of these strips.

-With right sides together sew one long side of the strip of fabric around one of the circles.
-Then do the same with the other circle sewing it to the other long side of the strip, leaving enough room to turn the pillow right side out and stuff it.
- Once the pillow is stuffed sew the opening closed.

- Follow the same instructions as step 2. Sew your circles to the length of your 8 inch strip and leave enough room to turn it right side out only this time leave it even bigger so that you can fit the pillow you just made inside the cover.
If you choose you can secure it closed with buttons, hook and loop tape, or snaps.