DIY Ruffled Crib Skirt with Matching Window Valance

For today's Throwback Thursday post I am going to reminisce about making the ruffled crib skirt for Olivia's nursery. While planning the room, I had an extremely difficult time figuring out a color scheme or a theme. Flipping through Pinterest one day I found several super cute ruffled crib skirts that seemed like exactly what I was looking for.

I especially loved that I could use several different fabrics that would bring a few different colors into the room. Then, I looked at the prices... Whew! They are expensive! So I looked on Pinterest for DIY tutorials and found several! My two favorites, and the ones that I used for reference, were from Saleena Marie and A Little Bolt of Life.



I didn't get any pictures throughout the process, so definitely check theirs out for a more detailed tutorial!

First, I went to Joann Fabric's. I found three awesome fabrics that were exactly what I was looking for. It also finalized the fact that her nursery color scheme would be teal, pink and grey.

I also used an old sheet that I had stashed away to be upcycled :) I cut the sheet into several pieces. One piece needed to be 28" x 52" to go under the crib mattress, then I needed pieces for the sides. Because of the crib style and location within the room, only the front shows, so I only needed to make one long panel. I cut a piece of the sheet to be 12" x 52". If you plan to add side panels, the panel for that would need to be 12" x 28".

Since I didn't need to make any side panels, I decided to make a panel of ruffles to use as a window valance. I measured the window and it was 32" wide, so I cut the panel to 12" x 32".

Next, I needed to cut my fabric into long, thin pieces. You want each piece to be about 6" tall and about 2 1/2 times the width of your panel. In my case, I wanted to have 6" x 130" in all three fabrics. For the window, I needed to have 6" x 96". None of the fabrics were 130" long, so I cut strips and sewed them together.

After the pieces were sewn together, I hemmed the bottom edge of each strip, the only side that would be visible. Then I used a basting stitch all along the top. A basting stitch (in my non-knowledgeable understanding) is just basically the longest stitch that your machine has available. DO NOT back stitch! Once you have sewn along the entire length, hold the top thread and scrunch your fabric towards the center of the piece until it is the size of the panel it will be attached to.

Then you need to sew each piece onto the panel. One will go a couple inches below the top edge, one will go on the bottom edge and one will go in the middle. The panel won't show, so I went ahead and drew a line on it that I could pin my fabric along.

Once all three fabric pieces are attached to the panel, it needs to be sewn to the biggest piece of the sheet that will go under the mattress. Nothing complicated about this, just pin and sew!

For the window valance, I folded the extra couple inches at the top over and sewed it down to allow it to slide onto my curtain rod.

And it was done! I LOVE the way it looks in the room and we were able to design all of the other decorations around the colors in the fabrics :)

This was the project that allowed me to make friends with my sewing machine. Although it seems complicated, it is actually a great beginner sewing job that allows a little wiggle room for mistakes without them being obvious.

Thanks for reminiscing with me :)

See you soon,