What a busy weekend, folks. My husband and I have just spent the last two days being very productive. It’s a good feeling, but I’d love a good nap today!

Erik and I got our office cleaned and organized, and as I set up the new sewing machine (Brother CE 5000PRW – I named her Heidi), Erik hooked up cable in the office. We’ll also be moving the Tivo up there, so I can have marathons of “Martha” episodes while I sew/craft.  Or, the movie “Batman”, which I watched while making this weekend’s project – a cat bed.

My cat Fred absolutely loves to sleep in boxes. It doesn’t matter what kind – it just has to be a box.

Since we brought home a puppy a almost three months ago, Fred has been a bit stressed about having his precious routine messed up. So to reward him, I decided to make him a special cat bed. In a box, of course. In addition, I had found some GREAT grey flannel print fabric – with faux-Transformers and generic R2-D2s. And a spaceship named “Fred”.

Why is the spaceship named Fred? No clue.

Materials:

  • Mat Board/cardboard
  • Fabric (how much depends on how big the box will be. In this case, I cut out two pieces that were the size of the mat board)
  • Stuffing
  • Decorative paper (as usual I used Amy Butler)
  • Mod Podge
  • Ruler

Not pictured:

  • Packing tape
  • X-acto knife
  • Pencil/something to mark the board with
  • Paint brush for mod podge
  • Thread/needle
  • Sewing machine

1. Cut fabric to size. I cut two pieces that were the size of the board. In hindsight, I might have cut them a bit smaller. It all depends on how full you want the pillow part of the bed to be. If you want it very full and fluffy, cut it to the size of the board. If not, then smaller.
2. Figure out how deep you want your box to be. Mine is 3 inches deep. Mark the depth on all sides, as seen in the picture below.

3. Score each line carefully with an X-acto knife. The goal is not to cut through all of the layers of the board, but some of them. When you’re done, cut the corners out – you don’t need them.

4. Flip the board over so the cut side is down. Gently bend back the sides along the cut lines.

5. Tape the corners. I tend to go overboard on tape. But then, I have a very fat cat so I wanted to reinforce this sucker.

6. You now have a box. To paper, cut out strips of paper to fit around box. Since my box was 3″ deep and I wanted to wrap the paper along the inside of the box as well, I cut 6″ deep strips. I applied Mod Podge along each area of the box I wanted to paper (working in sections). Then, affix the paper (lining it up with the outside bottom of the box) on the outside and fold it over to the inside. Smooth out – I recommend using a bone folder. I could not find mine and used my fingers instead. Now, the box has bubbles in the paper. Again, I recommend using a bone folder.

7. While the Mod Podge dries, work on the pillow. Since you’ve basically cut out a big rectangle, the sewing takes no time at all. STitch along all 4 sides, leaving a 6″ opening for stuffing.

8. Stuff with your stuffing of choice. I used Poly-fill. It ended up being REALLY fluffy. TOO fluffy. I’m either going to have to open it up and take some stuffing out, or smoosh it down. I’m opting to smoosh it down because I am really proud of the hand stitches I put in it. Also, I’m lazy. Optional: put cat nip in the pillow. too.

9. Back to the box. Now that the Mod Podge has dried, add a coat to the outside of it to seal it.

10. Insert pillow. Insert cat. (or more accurately, attempt to insert cat, who lays on bed for 8 seconds, then runs out of room to go throw up a hairball on the kitchen floor)

I could not get a picture of Fred in the actual bed. This is as close as I got.