Customize a boring basket with fabric ribbon and use it as a convenient place to stash diaper supplies! If you’ve had babies, you know that everyone tells you that you need a changing table and a fancy changing pad in the nursery (you don’t, just use the top of a dresser) but what they don’t tell you is given how many times a day you change a diaper, especially for new babies, you are not going to want to walk to the nursery every single time. When we had O, we lived in a reasonably small condo and we still didn’t always want to walk all the way down the hall to his room. So we kept some diaper supplies in the living room so we could change him on the couch or the floor or in our bedroom.
And now that we’re in an actual house, I have a feeling that having stairs to deal with, especially at first, is going to make me even less likely to want to walk up to the nursery for diaper changes. So I grabbed this cute basket with a chalkboard label at the craft store (on sale!) to use to hold extra diapers, wipes, a changing pad and diaper cream. It’s actually a pretty cute basket and I could have just left it alone. It would look perfectly fine in my living room. But if you’ve ever visited Little Red Window before, you know, I just can’t do that. When it comes to crafting I’m not an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” kind of girl, I’m more of a “if it doesn’t have glue and glitter, add some tastefully” sort of person. So I wanted to make this basket a little prettier. Just because. I thought about painting some or all of it. But painted baskets are everywhere right now and there’s not really much involved in a tutorial for one. You just paint it. And also I wanted whatever I did to be reversible because I know, although it won’t feel like it, we won’t be in the diaper phase forever and I will probably want to use this basket for something else. I may not want it to be pink or gold or yellow forever. So I settled on a pretty (and easy!) fabric ribbon. Here’s how I did it:
Fabric Ribbon Diaper Caddy Basket
Basket with chalkboard label (you could use this plus this)
Quilting fabric
1. First measure your label. Mine was 2″ wide. 2. Then I cut a strip of fabric that was 3″ wide. I used the full width of the quilting fabric which was 45″, make sure it will fit all the way around your basket. 3. Here’s the trick for this, I didn’t want to get out either my sewing machine or my iron so I totally hemmed the edges with hot glue. I know! It sounds crazy! But hot glue works great on fabric and is perfect and fast for this sort of project. Just don’t use it on anything you would ever put in the washer or dryer and you’ll be fine. So I folded over the edge 1/2″ and glued along the entire length. Then I repeated along the other edge, checking as I went to make sure the overall width of my fabric “ribbon” was 2″ 4. Then I repeated the same process with an accent fabric, this time cutting it to 1 3/4″ and “hemming” the edges so the ribbon was 3/4″ wide. 5. Finally, I glued the accent “ribbon” down the middle of the main fabric ribbon for the entire length. Throughout the whole process, use your hot glue sparingly, you want this “ribbon” to remain flexible. When the accent fabric was attached, I trimmed one end so it was nice and even and then folded it in at the end so it was gathered like this. 6. Then I added some glue and stuck it behind the chalkboard label. 7. Next wrap your “ribbon” around the basket, secure in a few places with tiny dots of glue (remember we want this to be fairly reversible) and then cut to the length you need as it wraps back around to the other side of the chalkboard label. 8. After you cut it to length, gather that end as well and secure behind the label with some glue. And that’s it, fill it with diapers, wipes and a changing pad and you’re done! How cute is that?! I mean, nothing makes changing diapers FUN but at least now it’s a little prettier!
If you liked this, you may also like some of my other posts…
- Peekaboo Bunny Hat Knitting Pattern - March 14, 2024
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- Rainbow Twirl Hat Knitting Pattern - March 11, 2024
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