Re-Purpose A Crib Bumper into a Teething Rail

My daughter's crib had the gummy stick on teething rails but the two side ones came off recently (the front one is still on good) so she has been gnawing on the wood. The sides are starting to look awful and I don't feel comfortable letting her eat whatever finish is on the crib so I needed to replace the teething rails that came off. I was so surprised when I saw that I would have to spend at least $15 for them so that is when my ingenuity (cheapness) set in.

My daughter's crib bumper has been sitting in her closet for months and has been taking up room. I am not going to use it again and the baby consignment store near my house doesn't like to take bedding because it doesn't sell to well around here. This Pottery Barn bumper cost me $10 on Ebay and was brand new when I got it. After looking around the Internet for how to make a teething rail I decided that making one out of a crib bumper would be easy peezy and super frugal. 

I am not a good sewer and my sewing machine scares me to no end so I did this by hand. There is minimal sewing though so if you are a novice like me you should do fine.

First, I measured the rails that I would be making the covers for which were each 27 inches. I measured from each finished end (this means less sewing for you!) of the bumper and cut. I then folded back the cloth of the bumper about 1/2 an inch and cut the excess filling that was sticking out.

After cutting out the piece of filling that was sticking out I folded the fabric back out and the folded it over to one side and pinned to make a finished edge and then sewed.

Once the edges on both rail covers are sewed it is time for the strings that will be used to secure the cover to the rails. Your bumper should have double strings on it so cut one of the strings off of each set and leave the other one. Now, on the opposite side of where you left one of the strings pin and sew the other string onto the bumper. Depending where your bumper has strings on it you will most likely have to add more strings in different spots, just make sure that each string has a match on the opposite side that you sew on. My rail cover ended up having four strings on each side, yours can have more or less depending on your preference.

Once done I just tied the rail cover onto the crib, making sure that I tied it very securely.

If you need one for the front rail also just use the steps above with the right measurement for your front rail. Keep in mind thought that you will have to sew two ends of the bumper for the front rail as you used the two finished ends for the side pieces.

So there it is- my new rail covers that I re purposed from a crib bumper that I was just going to get rid of. Pretty neat, huh?