Craft a Rustic Country Bed for A Mouse

      A bed like this one, may be made using ordinary craft supplies: craft sticks and cardboard that most people have stored away in cupboards. 

       The bed may be any size just as long as it accommodates many mouse babies! You can craft a little mattress as well for the bed or just loose cotton batting to snuggle-up in. As long as the mice are warm and safe, they will be easily satisfied with small, dry, warm spaces. 

       I also sewed together recycled bits and pieces of quilt to make an old-fashioned quilted blanket. The fabrics once were used to line fabric flour sacks during the Great Depression. I know this because their was text printed on the backside of it reading "FLOUR" But, once you sew the printed sides together into a blanket, you can no longer see the text.

• 

  The finished country bed includes a country quilt.

  Depression Era Calico Prints
• See this bed in the Country Mouse Shoebox House here. - look up in the loft!

Supply List:

• Popsicle sticks (9 large for my bed shown here)
• scrap cardboard
• white tacky glue
• masking tape
• faux rustic wood printed paper (my paper has multiple painted wood planks)
• scrap fabric for a soft quilted blanket (recycled old quilt scraps for my version)
• cotton balls for stuffing pillows
• thread to match
• small paper clamps to hold tightly joints while these dry
• utility scissors or knife (adult supervision if knife is used)
• Mod Podge

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1.  First cut out the base board for the bed's mattress from scrap cardboard. This will determine the size and scale of the bed rails and quilt.
2. Using the tacky glue attach the headboard and footboard made from craft sticks to the base. Use paper clamps to help hold these in place while the glue dries.
3. Then cut and assemble the side rails by the same methods.
4. Cut, fit and fashion the decorative fauve wooden papers and paste these in place. Do not use too much glue for this decoupage project because the craft sticks may warp too much.
5. Layer Mod Podge over the surfaces if you think it is needed. (optional)
6. Cut out a piece of scrap fabric or felt. Cover this with quilt scraps to make a kind of 'crazy quilt design' for the small recycled blanket. Decorate it further with buttons and/or lace, if desired.

Left and center, photos of the bed made from Popsicle sticks or tongue depressors for a little
country mouse and her babies to sleep in. The various colors of wood printed paper are all
from one sheet of paper. The bed looks very ''weathered'' which is entirely appropriate for
a country mouse, I think. See another bed for a mouse here made from a matchbox!

The country mouse mother sewed together a lovely crazy quilt, using whatever she could find
among discarded bits and pieces in the sewing room of an old country cottager.

Back through the mousehole . . .