Twin Nap Mats

Even though my girls will usually come home from pre-school before the afternoon nap, I wanted them to have a nap mat that they knew and felt comfortable with for those "just in case" and emergency days. I looked over all the popular tutorials and liked this style the best because:

1. The 1 inch foam is comfortable and soft.
2. You take the "guts" out to wash the cover, this keeps the "guts" like new and not lumpy.

I did do a few things differently than the original tutorial.

• I used soft flannel instead of regular cotton fabric. Our mats are really soft and comfy, but be aware that flannel shrinks more than other fabrics and I had to piece one long side of my mat to make it wide enough. I also did not cut my fabric into 2 rectangles, but just folded the 1 large rectangle in half to conserve the fabric I would have lost in the seam allowance. I top stitched the blanket down the side using a large zig zag stitch.

 

• I used pillows I already had from a hospital stay to put in the pillow section, because I wanted to be able to take it out for laundering. I added Velcro here too in the same way as for the foam section.

 

• I serged around the closure tabs instead of turning and top stitching them.
• I used 1 layer of "cuddle" fabric instead of two layers of minky dot for the blanket. I mainly did this to cut costs, but found finishing the edges of this frustrating. It was difficult to turn it under and hem the edges without it looking messy, serging kept it from pilling everywhere but the stitches could pull off the edge if stressed, so I made binding to cover the raw edges. This still did not look as professional as I would like because the edges looked like "lettuce" after applying the binding. In hind sight, making a 2 layer blanket would have been much easier, but also more expensive.
• I used more binding fabric to make the small handle.

Cost Analysis:

Flannel $5.50 has been sitting in my stash since last winter, purchased on sale

Yellow fabric $1.50 has been in my stash for years, purchased on clearance when Walmart closed its fabric department

Cuddle fabric $10.00 bought with a 50% off coupon from JoAnns for this project

Foam $18.00 bought with a 50% off coupon from JoAnns for this project

Velcro $4.50

Buttons $1.55

Pillows $ free with hospital stay, lol, yeah right

Thread $1.00

= $42.05 for 2 customized mats.

$21.00 each

That is what I would expect to pay for a cheaply made mat that might be cute, but would not hold up to use and laundering. I have seen nice mats advertised for around $40-$68! I think ours are really nice and should last for years of pre-school, camp outs, and even sleep-overs.

The girls LOVE them. And I do too.

 

To follow the original tutorial, check out this link:

Nap Mat Tutorial by Jenny Garland

For other variations check out:

Simple Dimples Blog