Upholstered Headboard

When we moved into our new home, our sleigh bed wouldn't fit into our new room.  Yeah!  I always wanted to make an upholstered headboard- so here was my excuse.  First I took a large piece of paper (from a roll of butcher paper) and taped it to my wall behind the bed.  Then I drew (and drew, and drew and drew) out the shape that I wanted onto it.  During this process I also made the bed with the pillows propped up on the headboard just to give a better idea of what I wanted.  I'm not sure what happened to the pictures I took of this process- sorry!  Once I had the shape and size figured out, I folded the paper in half and cut out the shape.  This is how you can make sure your shape is perfectly even on both sides!  Then I handed over the paper to my DH and he traced it onto a large sheet of plywood.  He then nicely cut it out for me using his jigsaw and then screwed on two 2x4's as the legs:

He put the 2x4's too close to the outside edge, so I had him move those in about 4 inches as you will see in the following pictures.  I wanted to make tufts in the headboard, so I measured out where I wanted them to go and drilled holes in the plywood:

Next I purchased a sheet of 3"x30"x72 foam (eBay).  When the foam arrived, it needed to be stretched out and laid flat for a few days before I could apply it.  I used spray glue to attach it to the wood and then borrowed a meat cutter to trim the foam:

I just held the blade along the plywood and trimmed all the way down the top of the frame.  Really easy to cut- like butter!  I then had to add a few of the trimmed pieces to the sides since it wasn't quite long enough:

Next I used a piece of batting and stapled it to the back of the headboard, then did the same with the material (3 yards) I wanted to use.  It worked out well to lay the fabric down on the ground first, then the batting on top of that and then lay the headboard face down on top of that.  Then I stapled the batting all the way around, then the material keeping it pulled with the same amount of pressure all the way around:

Then it was time to add the buttons!  I covered my own buttons with matching material- the instructions come in the package of buttons.  Super easy to cover them, but a little bit more difficult to add them.  I think if I were to do tufts on anything again, I would hot glue the buttons to a nail head and hammer them into place!  The process I used required a very long needle:

Heavy thread and an additional 1.5" button for each tuft.  I tied the button to the string:

 Then pushed the needle through the holes I had drilled in the board earlier. The back of it looked like this:

 Then I was able to attach the button to the front and then sew back and forth a few times through each button hole.  If you attempt this- be sure to use heavy duty thread and lots of it!  It was worth it, because the finished product looks like this:

OK- not the greatest picture, but here is a picture of it all finished and in the room:

My DH also installed the piece of crown moulding on the headboard wall- we have built in dressers that go all the way to the ceiling or I would have had him do the whole room.  I painted the ceiling using two different colors of purple mixed with glaze (a small area at a time) and then used a damp wool car washing mitt to blend the colors together.  The mural behind the headboard was done using a white pearl paint and a little bit of grey for the shadows.