I believe your bedroom should be a haven. It should reflect comfort & your personality. It doesn’t have to break the bank, but you spend a good amount of time there every day, so why not make it somewhere you want to be?

I’ve wanted a pretty deep tufted feminine headboard for forever. They are so romantic! My husband likes wood headboards, but he left me go with my gut on this one. I’m always starting a project, and he always saves me from it failing miserably, which is what actually happened during this project. Lol. Poor guy.Anyhow, with all the DIY headboards out there, I figured why not give it a try? Well, we made this DIY Queen Headboard for like $40’ish. Shocker, I know!

I wanted to try a unique method for my headboard, because the one I wanted had like 60 buttons & was deep tufted. So I used a secret method, that you will have to read on to find out! This method is seriously life changing guys!

Step 1.

Cut your plywood cut the height you want, and the width of your bed. If you don’t have tools to do this yourself, your local lumber store will probably do it for free. We used particle board because it is so inexpensive. It does the job, but I do kinda wish we had gone with something more sturdy.

Step 2.

Place your foam on top of the plywood. We were super cheap with this step. Foam can be super expensive. So what did I do? I cut open some old sofa chair cushions that I had been hoarding in my garage for over a year, sliced them down the middle for an even width, and cut them to fit my headboard.

You can see that there are a total of 5 foam segments on my headboard. But they are all even, so in the end it didn’t really matter that there were several instead of one.

Step 3.

Spray the backs and sides of the foam with 77 scotch adhesive (this is the one I used HERE) to attach it to the plywood & glue the sides together.

Step 4.

Cut out wedges form your foam that go all the way down to the plywood back. These wedges are where our bottoms will go & allow us to get that deep tufted look. Scissors and knives both work for this step. Just make sure all your button holes are appropriately spaced

Step 5.

Now for the exciting part! I was dreading sewing hundreds of buttons into a board… so I decided to use a much faster, more secure method, Screws and washers! It’s seriously that easy you guys!

Push your finger into the button hole to create the tufting.

And screw that tufting spot down to the board. Just do it right through the material. But be careful that the screws don’t pull or twist the material in an unwanted direction.

Here you can see the two layers of fabric I used. One was a soft fleece I used instead of a batting polyester (again, because I used what I had on hand) and the lovely bleached drop cloth on top. If layering fabrics like this, make sure they are very fitted to each other, to prevent wrinkles underneath.

I recommend going in rows.

I have to say that my tufting creases weren’t perfect. It really bothered me at first, but I went over it once done, redid a few screw “buttons” and made it look a lot better. I recommend looking up tufting tutorials and videos if doing a deep tuft like I did. I also think we could have used less buttons, but I do seriously love how it turned out, despite those two things.

One awesome thing about using screws instead of buttons is that you can always go back and painlessly move/adjust your button placement later. It also really does an amazing job of holding the tufting down when working with deep foam. I’ve done other projects the traditional way of tying the buttons on the back, but have found that many of the buttons pop up with time. When you use a washer and screw it really stays put!

Step 6.

When all your tufting is done, pull the sides tightly; going from tufting crease, to tufting crease; and staple onto the back. We used lots of staples & the back really isn’t pretty. But hey, no one will look there! Lol!

Step 7.

Attach to the base of your bed. We built our bed, so my husband simply put three posts made up of 2×4’s to attach it on top of. We actually just used the same screws we did the tufting with, only longer to attach to the 2×4’s.

Step 8.

Cover your buttons. All 3 Billion of them. Seriously, try to do this when binge watching Netflix… your fingers will hate this headboard so much. Lol!

Because drop cloth is SO thick, I just used this flat upholstery button kit (I didn’t use the backs!) and hot glued the fabric onto the back of the button.

Step 9.

Hot glue gun the buttons over the screws. This step seriously brought the headboard from a 70 to a 100! I am SO in love with it.

It’s seriously SO dreamy. I LOVE my bedroom now!!! This headboard makes sleeping in & waking up that much more fun. 😉

And it’s PERFECT for baby photoshoots!!!

I love how it’s made from drop cloth. Seriously, it’s perfect, especially since the rest of our master bedroom is neutrals & white.

Because of it’s natural look & feel, this DIY deep tufted drop cloth headboard also goes so well with my DIY pallet nightstands. We are sill working on a few elements for our room, but it is almost done, and it’s certainly turning into a retreat! Staycation anyone?

Want to use drop cloth, but want it whiter? See how I bleach mine HERE!