Dog beds and dog crate pads can be so expensive and if you have a bed sucker like I do, it can get expensive fast. Because of the bottomless money pit known as my dogs, I started sewing my own crate pads. This tutorial is for a super easy DIY dog crate pad, but you can easily turn it into a super easy DIY dog bed too!

Meet my Doberman aka The Shop Mascot. 

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He has Doberman OCD and it takes form as sucking on his bedding. Which means we go through dog beds and crate pads a lot. Then we built him a custom sized dog crate and it left me with no choice but to make his crate pads. Luckily it’s not that hard.

What you need:

1. Fabric- I bought thicker clothing material at a thrift store. It’s a dog bed he’s gonna drool on so I wasn’t picky about color.
2. Rotary cutter or fabric scissors
3. Some kind of batting or stuffing. I used left over batting from other projects.
4. Sewing machine and basic sewing skills. Can you sew in a sort of straight line? Then you are set. 

Start by measuring the size you need. My dogs crate is 42×30 inches.

Next, measure your fabric. I added at least two inches to each measurement. To be honest, I made this up as I went along so I was being generous so that I had “fuck up” wiggle room. It also gave me a one inch seam allowance because I wasn’t 100% sure how much batting I was going to use.

Cut the fabric to size. I ended up with fabric that was 46×32. I had a few extra inches because that is what was left of the fabric so why waste another cut. 

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Next, lay your fabric out right sides together an pin along the edges so they line up with each other as best they can. 



My fabric didn’t have a right side but you get the idea.

Now you have to decide how you will stuff it. If you want to use scrap fabric or old TShirts, you can sew your edges now. If you are using batting like I did, you can either stuff it after you sew or sew it in place like I did.

I opted to fold the batting and layer it and pin it to my fabric and sew. My pup is a destroyer of beds so the more of it sewn in place the better.

Now sew! 

Don’t forget to leave one of the short sides open so you can turn it right side out. 

I’ll be honest, I made my padding so thick it was challenging to sew, but my boy has bad elbows so it was worth the hair tearing and sobbing hysterically frustration to do so. 

I suggest reinforcing the stitching as well. And for those of you who might be waving line sew’ers this can make it a bit stronger. Also, I did not turn my fabric while sewing. My quilting foot, which I used because it was so thick, doesn’t reverse stitch so intersecting, reinforced stitching is how I locked my stitches. 

Onto the end! 

Turn your work right side out. You will probably have an open end with scraggly looking batting and edges.

Trim the batting down so that it isn’t hanging out past the fabric. Now just fold those raw edges in, line them up, pin in place and sew closed.

I chose to actually just fold the longer edge of fabric over the other like an envelope and then sew, but that particular fabric had finished edges and I was feeling lazy.

My end product was a nice fluffy crate pad that fits perfectly in his crate and cost me less than $10 to make.

***i was going to sew a rectangle around the interior about three inches from the finished edges but due to the thickness I decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, but I do think it would look nice if you decide to try. 

The beautiful part is that using leftover or cheap thrift store finds means I am much less upset when he destroys them.

Have you ever made a dog bed? What style?