This tutorial is one of the first tutorials I ever posted on my former blog. Due to it’s surprising success, I felt the need to revamp, polish, and reshare here. I have made minor tweaks to my original tutorial based on experience and feedback from making these for several years now! I hope you all enjoy them as much as I have – my friends and family are still raving about how well they work… and who doesn’t want a gift that will help baby sleep?
As my friends continue to grow families and invite me to their flipping adorable baby showers, I found myself in need of a creative gift. And you know me, friends, I had to find something practical and useful. I found a few ideas, but the most clever I found was a door jammer. It’s a piece of fabric that slips over the door handles and covers the door latch, preventing door slamming and clicking when babies are sleeping! Brilliant!
After a little examining, I knew I could replicate (and improve) this genius thing on a dime. So I came up with this tutorial over 5 years ago. My beloved follower friends have been making these for FIVE years now and they’re a huge hit. A few shared suggestions for tweaks and I agreed after remaking these 50 times, so here is the improved tutorial:
Door Jammers
What you will need:
- Cotton batting, scrap fleece, or felt
- 2 hair elastics
- Fabric – You can dig in your scrap pile for this project!
- 3×5″ Index card for template
- The Usual Suspects: Iron, sewing machine, thread, scissors
Step 1: Cut out your fabric. Use the Index card as a template and cut out two pieces of fabric the size of the index card with a half inch to one inch border (doesn’t have to be exact, it’s just to create a nice finished edge).
Tip: fold the the index card over your door latch – if it is too big or way too small, adjust your sizing acccordingly or use a larger index card for your template.
Step 2: Fold in and iron edges of each rectangle of fabric around index card, mitering your corners.
Step 3: Cut out a piece of batting the size of your index card. Place this piece of batting in one of the pieces of fabric, tucking it under the folds.
Step 5: Using the batted half, open end up, place two hair elastics on each end. Cover with second piece of fabric in a “sandwich”. Pin.
Step Six: Sew around edge of “sandwich”. This will hold the elastics in place and hold both sides together.
Done!
Not only are these great for baby rooms, they’re great at keeping toddlers from locking themselves into rooms or slamming doors. Until they outsmart us, of course. But until then, here’s to hoping all the new moms will enjoy these door jammers!
Thanks for stopping by, especially if you are coming over from my former blog site. Welcome! If you like what you found here, give this page a follow and check out the facebook page and Instagram @craftybridge. Tons more to see over there!
Crafty Bridge 
How do you sew over the bands? My machine has a problem with this?
LikeLike
Hi Kathy, if your sewing machine’s foot doesn’t want to ‘roll’ over the elastic, I usually lift the foot a little once I get the the elastic. This will help it keep going. If it is the needle that is giving you trouble, you might need a more heavy-duty needle to pierce the thickness of the fabric.
Hope this helps! Have fun!
LikeLike