Bassinet . . . and Channeling my Mother

I don't want to embarrass her, so I won't say too much, but let's just say my mom is a domestic McGyver.  I swear she can construct a solution to any problem using spare parts lying around the house.  I have often been awed by this, since my brain tends to function much more linearly and so imagining outside-the-box solutions just doesn't come naturally.

But over the last year or so there have been more and more occasions when I did something or came up with a solution and thought, "hey, that is something my mom would do." 

Well, this project is totally something my mom would do.  Okay, maybe not, because she likely wouldn't consider the aesthetics of something few people will see and that will only be used for a couple months a problem worthy of investing time and money to solve, but assuming she was trying to solve said problem, this is a Mom-worthy solution. 

We were lent this awesome bassinet by a co-worker.

From 2013 October

This is awesome for so many reasons.  Given the lack of a nursery, the baby will likely share our room for months and so using the pack n' play like we did for Nicholas would have been a pain.  But this is smaller than the pack n' play and therefore fits more easily in the corner of our room.  It is also super-duper light, which combined with being smaller means it can be easily pulled through doorways and so moved to different rooms.  The legs also flip with just two quick buttons to make it a rocker rather than stationary.  And it is safe to use with a 6-month old, whereas the pack n' play bassinet is only for up to 15 pounds.

But . . . it is very orange.  And metal.  And Scandanavian.  I don't want to say Ikea because that implies cheap and I am positive it is not that, but the design aesthetics of Ikea.  Which lots of people love.  It is modern and sleek and bold.  But, let's be honest.  We are none of those things.

So I decided to make a cover for it.  But this was easier said than done because it is on loan so I couldn't stitch anything to the fabric or in any other way alter the original.  And I didn't want to have anything go inside the bassinet itself where it could be potentially dangerous for the baby.  The base plan was safety pins, but I knew I wouldn't be able to get the fabric to hang the way I wanted.

And so I ended up engineering a hanging system using 4 metal hangers that I re-bent into basically curtain rods and attached around the little round screws on each leg

From 2013 October

After that it was basically just making 4 curtains.  There was a tiny bit more to it than that since the legs are at angles and so the curtains had to angle as well, but that wasn't too hard.

And so here is the final product:

From 2013 October

And, yes, in case all the bragging hadn't tipped you off, I am inordinately proud of myself for this.  Because, really, this is a Mom-worthy project.