How to Make a Car Seat Tent With a Ribbon Accent

Make a car seat tent to keep the sunlight out of your sleeping baby's eyes.

Car seat tents fit over your baby's car seat and are useful for when you are driving a sleeping baby somewhere during the day and want to shield your baby from visual stimuli. Making car seat tents is a simple process. Adding a ribbon accent can help add a little decoration to your tent. Sew car seat tents for your own baby seats or give them out as baby shower gifts for friends who are expecting or have children of their own.

Things You'll Need

• Tape measure
• Pencil
• Fabric
• Scissors
• Iron
• Sewing pins
• 5 feet of elastic strip
• Sewing needles
• Sewing thread
• 5 feet of ribbon

Instructions

1. Measure the width of the car seat's handle to find the width of your tent. Measure from the top of the seat to the very bottom to find the length of the tent. Add two inches to each of these measurements, and write them down on a piece of paper with the inches added.

2. Draw a rectangle to the size of your measurements on your piece of fabric. Cut it out with your scissors and place it on another piece of fabric. Trace around it and cut out a second sheet of fabric of the same size.

3. Iron the fabric rectangles you just cut out. Fold your sheets in half on top of one another, and cut out a curve along the non-folded edge. Cut the curve tall and wide enough to drape over the front end of the car seat.

4. Unfold the pieces of fabric, but keep them lying on top of one another. Pin the right side of the fabric shut and place the tent over the top of the car seat to see how well it fits. Position the front side with the curve at the front. Remove the tent from the car seat.

5. Sew along the left and right edges of the fabric pieces to hold them together. Cut a strip of elastic that is long enough to fit along the front side. Sew it to the front edge one-half-inch up from the edge. Cut another strip for the back and sew it in the same way.

6. Turn your tent inside out and slide it over top of your car seat. Watch the elastic to make sure it holds the tent to the car seat completely. Remove it from the car seat.

7. Measure the areas of the cover to which you want to add your ribbon accents. Choose areas along the sides and top. Cut ribbons to these lengths using your scissors.

8. Lay your ribbons on your car tent and sew them into place. Sew them so they flow in the same direction.

References

• The Ribbon Retreat: How to Make a Car Seat Tent
• Sweet N Sassy Girls: How to Make a Reversible Car Seat Cover Tent Canopy
• Make it Do: Baby Car Seat Cover Tutorial