Headboards Galore!: Part 3: Buttons! Buttons! and more Buttons!

Progress!  Still not done, but so far so good!

For the last few weeks I have been working on buttons.  J's headboards are going to have around 130 buttons and T's headboard is going to have 24.  I am making the buttons - so that is a whole lot of work.  The good news is that J's are now done.  T's involve an extra step that has encountered some temporary technical difficulties!

Let's start with J's buttons.  They are pretty easy.  You buy a kit that has a tool in it and as many refill kits as you need.  I purchased mine online this time as I needed a whole lot, but I have purchased them at the local fabric store before.  Here is a picture of everything you will need. 

 There is a template on the back of the box of button pieces that tells you how big to cut the fabric.  I purchased templates for different sized buttons that are a bit more sturdy than the cardboard one on the back of the box.  So, yours will likely look a little different, but will accomplish the same thing.  You trace it on your fabric and then cut it out.

After cutting it out you place your fabric on the bigger of the 2 tool pieces with the hollow side up and the ugly side of the fabric up.   Then place the front button piece face down on the fabric.  Use your fingers to push the button piece and the fabric down into the hollow center of the tool.

Fold all the edges to the center and then place the shank of the button on top.

























Place the smaller tool piece on top of the shank with the open side down and press.  You may hear a click and you want to make sure you get all the edges of the shank into the top part of the top button piece.

And here is your finished product!  Now repeat for as many buttons as you need!

 And I wasn't even done here!  ;)









So now on to the minor and temporary technical difficulty with T's buttons.  T has a map room.  He loves that kind of stuff.  I bought an extra black curtain and am going to use that as the fabric for his headboard.  It was $10 and matches his curtains.  Double win!  Any how,  I want his buttons to be maps.  So, I am attempting to print on fabric.  I read up on it and got to work.  But the first attempt had some problems:

The fabric peeled off of the freezer paper backing in the leading corner causing the black ink mess and I need to darken the images so they don't look so washed out when the ink soaks into the fabric.  So, I will try again, but maybe not until I finish J's headboards.  I will update you when I do!

The next step, the actual tufting, is the most time consuming - especially when you have 130 buttons to tuft and my staple gun broke part way through the 1st headboard.  On the bright side I am replacing it with an automatic one that attaches to our air compressor.  My hands are so thankful it broke!  ;)  So, expect a few days to a week before I post the finished photos in my next post!  

Headboards Galore: Part 2: Cool tools!

When we last left this project this is what we had:

Remember how I so carefully drilled all those holes?  Well they are still there they are just convered up with all that foam!  So, now we get to transfer the holes to the foam.   Take a long needle and stick it through the hole from the back until it pokes through the foam on the front.  I then took a Sharpie and held it for a second on the foam, against the needle, kind of down into the hole.  I forgot to take a picture of this part, but you are basically marking the spot that the needle came through.  A couple of tips - try to get the needle straight through the foam and not at an angle or the next step will not end well as your two holes may not match up.  Repeat until all the holes are marked on the foam.

 Now comes a fun part.  You have to make holes in the foam.  My buttons were 7/8 inch in size and so I decided to go with a 1.5 inch hole.  You can accomplish this several ways.  You can cut through the foam with very sharp scissors, a box cutter might work but I have not tried that, or you can do it the slightly more expensive but save yourself a lot of headache way like I did.  I bought a button tufting foam cutter.  They come in a radius of 1 in., 1.25 in. or      1.5 in. that I saw.  There could be other sizes as well.  You hook that little tool up to a drill, spray the end of it with silicon spray often, center it over a dot and drill away!  Nice holes that are uniform in size and fairly easy to cut.









It is kind of hard to see, but this is what you end up with - this was the first try so there is only 1 hole and one plug sitting on the foam.

My husband did this part for me why I was marking the other headboard.  He tried doing it while it was propped against a wall, but ultimately found it was easier to do if you laid it flat on the ground and then started drilling.  He also highly recommends spraying the foam cutter with the silicon spray often as that made a huge difference!

The next step is to add a layer of batting over the foam.  All the tutorials I read did this - I don't know why, but my best guess is that it kind of smooths everything out.   I happened to have some in my supply closet that covered both of J's headboards, but I am going to have to make a run to get more to cover T's.  You staple it to the back with a staple gun and then trim off any excess.

And this is what it should look like at this point.  Notice the detail on the top is not as obvious.  When I get the fabric on and start pulling things tight that should bring out the detail in the top again.

So far, so good.  Stay tuned for the next post on this project.  It is looking more and more like it is actually going to work!  YAY!!!!!!

Headboards galore! Part 1: Wood and Foam!

So, when I try something new I tend to jump right in.  No, starting small until I figure out if it is going to work or not.  That is just how I am.  This weeks project has been on my mind for months and months......  Headboards.    On my to do list has been a deeply tufted headboard for my oldest daughter (actually 2 - her bed is in a corner and so we are doing one for the head of her bed and one for along the side of the bed that is against the wall) and a not quite as deeply tufted headboard for my son.  This week I finally got to work on them.

I read all sorts of tutorials and then jumped right in.   After reading all the descriptions I decided that I wanted a deeply tufted diamond tufting on my daughter's 2 headboards and less tufted rectangle tufting on my son's headboard.  First I measured and used graph paper to lay out the size and tufting pattern for each headboard.

Next, I grabbed the hubby and we headed to Home Depot.  We grabbed two 4 ft x 8 ft pieces of wood.  Cost was around $45.  I originally thought I would need 3 sheets, but adjusted the height of two of my headboards to 24 inches so that I could get 2 out of 1 board and save some dollars.  Wood is not cheap!  We had Home Depot cut the boards to size for us.  The headboard that is going at the head of my daughter's bed was going to have some detail and not be just square.  So, I worked with my daughter to create a shape we both liked and then made a template.  I sketched it unto the board and borrowed a friend's jigsaw to cut it out.  I love how it turned out!

Then, I transferred the grid lines from my graph paper to the wood and marked each place that I needed to drill a hole with an X.    This, is where I surprised my husband.  While he was at work I found his drill, figured out how to switch the bit, and drilled through each X all on my own.  He acted surprised when he got home - so apparently he didn't think I knew how.  ;) 

 The next part involves foam.  I used an egg crate type foam mattress topper from Walmart.  I think it was cheaper doing it this way then buying the foam padding from the fabric store.  That stuff is expensive!  I used a total of 3 full size foam mattress pads.   I bought these a while back and I am going to have to swing by Walmart to see how much I paid.  I will update this when I find out.  I also used a can of spray adhesive.  The one pictured worked OK for this project, but I might try a different one next time.  I just already had this one on hand.  I had to piece the foam together in paces - which is totally fine!  I also doubled it up so that I had 2 layers over my whole board.  I wanted it to be a little thicker and I had enough foam to do it.  Yay!

After all the foam was adhered to the board or another piece of foam with the spray adhesive, I flipped the board over and used scissors to cut along the edge.  I was going to use a box cutter, but couldn't find it and found that my sharp sewing scissors worked pretty well for this.  They did end up with adhesive residue on them that I am hoping I can get off - so beware if you use expensive sewing scissors!

 And that brings us to where I am now.  The boards are covered with the first layer.  The next steps are to get all of my buttons made and covered (130 for my daughter's and 24 for my son's).  And to cut out parts of the foam on my daughter's so that the tufting gets good and deep.  More on that on my next post!

I have never done this before and what you see above is where I stopped about an hour ago when I wore out.  I hope to get this project completely done in the next week or two.  I will post updates - so you will know if it is total fail!  Wish me luck!  I am going to need it!