DIY Play Tents for our New Year’s Eve campout!
We already have a few New Year’s Eve traditions in our house for the kids like- we order sushi takeout and do chocolate fondue for dessert! It’s always a fun, low key night and the kids love it! This year I wanted to add a new activity in that willhopefully become a fun tradition for us. We are going to a family “camp out” in our living room, play games, make smores, do fondue and eventually when they are older, stay up to watch the ball drop. With our new tradition I decided to do little DIY tents for each of the kids. All the steps for how I made these little cutie tents are listed below! Materials list is at the very end.
1. For each tent we used 2 peices of wood that measured 1 inch, by 2 inches, by 8 feet. I cut them in half leaving us with 4 peices of 4 foot wood.
(this will be the frame)
2. Next I drilled a hole in each end of the 4 peices of wood, so 8 holes in total. This is where the dowels will go to connect your frame.
3. Insert a dowel into the holes, criss- crossing the top peices of wood to create the tent shape
This is what the base/frame will look like without the fabric
4. Measure from one hole to the other. This number, times 2, will be the total measurement for your fabric. My measurement was 43 inches, so my fabric needed to be 86 inches in total.
5. Measure your fabric. I used old curtains we had lying around. Reusing what we had to keep this a cheapo-depot DIY.
6. Fold over the edge, to make a pocket for the dowel.
7. I used a hot glue gun (again, lol) along edge and fed the dowel through the pocket. Repeat on other side of fabric.
The 2 dowels with the arrows are the ones you feed through your fabric
This top dowel is where your fabric gets draped over to create the tent shape.
That’s it! Then you can style them up as cute as you want!
Since our play tents were for a campout I made them sleepover ready. The kids got these blow up mattresses from Santa so they were perfect to slide into each tent.
I used sheets our kids already have for their beds, added fluffy pillows, their homemade blankets from their great grandma and their hydroflasks (also a Christmas gift).
The hats/flowers were just a little personalizwed touch so each kiddo had their own special spot
The hats/flowers were just a little personalizwed touch so each kiddo had their own special spot
The hats/flowers were just a little personalizwed touch so each kiddo had their own special spot
The kids are sooo excited for our camp out and I’m excited to have a new fun tradition to carry on with the kids!
Materials list:
2 peices of wood measuring 8 feet by 2 inches, by 1 inch
3 dowels measuring 4 feet long (thickness is up to you, but the thicker the dowel is the sturdier the tent will be
8 foot peice of fabric (old curtains or sheets work perfectly!)
Mattresses (amazon) they are really optional but are soo cute and can be used again for sleepovers, family trips etc.
