Cardboard headboard

Ever since John and I got the elliptical that we had to store in our bedroom, our bed has been up agianst the window.

It's the only way everything would fit. 

All fine and dandy except for our stupid vertical blinds. 

I hit them in the middle of the night and they cling and clang together and are so loud they sometimes wake up Evelyn. 

*sigh*

We thought about making/buying curtains and just taking the ugly vertical blinds down but I thought of an even cheaper way to do things (we are obviously on a budget)

I wanted to make a headboard.

I looked on craiglist in the "free" section to see if they had any free wood we could use and found nothing. I did, however, find a huge lot of free cardboard.

I figured I could try that and see how it works.

Joann Fabrics was having a sale AND I had a coupon so I got all this fabric for $11 and batting for a small amont too. I probably spent no more than $20 on this.

What I used:

6 cardboard boxes

Lots of duct tape

Staples and staple gun

Batting

Fabric

Scissors 

I got 6 of the boxes and flattened them out and taped them together.

Then I drew the shape I wanted.

I have no ruler/measuring tape in the place we live right now (we still need to get all of our stuff from WA) so I used a little piece of cardboard as a ruler and made the circle with a pen and string.

Then use a teeny tiny pocket knife to cut and saw through the cardboard because you have nothing else that will work. 

Then tape it back together and watch a movie with your husband :-D

Then, if you are like me, have a panic attack about possible bugs being inside the cardboard and duct tape the crap out of that sucker...this will help with stability too.

I made legs out of cardboard too. 

Then staple the batting on.

Wash, dry and iron fabric and staple it on too.

Then have your super fasionable husband hold it up and take a pic of your work.

The wrinkles are driving me nutty right now but I plan to eventually tuft it, and by that point they won't matter as much. I couldn't smooth them out while stapling to save. my. life.

Then, tell you husband you need new bedding, sheets and pillows, and justify it by explaining how cheap this headboard was :)

Job well done. 

**if I had to do it again...**

I would use some sort of glue and glue each individual peice of cardboard together. That would have helped TREMENDOUSLY!! I sort of want to take it apart and do that....gorilla glue would be great I think.

I originally thought of paper mâché-ing it to make it really stiff and sturdy but opted for the faster and less work/waiting way. I wish i would have.

The headboard is nice and sturdy however it does bow just slightly away from the wall.

I'm going to remedy this by using picture hanging thingys (what are those called?) and putting them at the top so that it stays nice and butted up against the wall.