Sunday, January 23, 2011

Christmas Crafts--Bunk bed Tents and Who Loves Baby? book

This is what we had Christmas Hangovers for:







Update: 4/18/2013, Here are some pics of the inside of the top bunk bed tent. http://excitedandconfused.blogspot.com/2012/07/pictures-of-top-bunk-bed-tent-and.html. Good luck! I'd love to see a pic of yours if you make one, so send it to chambers (dot) steph (at) gmail (dot) com. 


I don't sew. Really. Except at Christmas. Then I suddenly become invested with delusions. At least these delusions are a regular Christmas occurrence, so I am getting a little better with the sewing machine. At this rate I will have it mastered by the time I'm 80.  

I love how the "Who Loves Ellie" book turned out. I wanted to do something bright and soft and chewable, so I found the printable fabric at Joanne's, got some scraps of red (I know I could have color-coordinated it better, but babies love red, right?), some of that super soft green stuff, and used some fleece that I've had sitting around and put it together. My fabulous and talented sister Alisha took the photos in the book. I used a "Taggie" book that we have for a pattern.  I only had to unpick three times and I didn't even swear. I've come to accept that when I sew, I will also unpick. It's part of my sewing life. If I want to reach sewing Nirvana I just have to unpick and move on. (I unpicked so much this December that Mike gave me a seam ripper for Christmas.)

The Bunkbed tent project is still unfinished, but finished enough to be cool for the girls. They love their new bunk bed tents and  Mike and I had a good time designing and working together on them. I got the idea from homemadebyjill 's cute little felt playhouse. I thought, "Hey I don't want that on the one table in my house, but it would be fun to make one for the bottom bunk." 

I was going to do something super simple for Kenzie's tent, like draping fabric from a huge embroidery hoop hung from the ceiling, but Mike got in on the design and used PVC to build the frame and canvas for the fabric. 

Mike is actually better at sewing than I am. He never has to unpick and he never swears. Ever. What a good man. 


After I decided that I was really going to attempt this project I found some other helpful links:
Woman of 1,000 hobbies --she made a bunk bed tent that is anchored differently from ours
Two Little Hooligans -- She made an outside tent that I was considering adapting for the top bunk and gave me the idea for pockets inside for the girls (which I haven't added yet)
Instructables --This inspired the PVC idea a little bit. 
Obsessively Stitching --had some good ideas from her table tent too. 

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Old neighbor! It's been fun seeing your blog and cute family! I LOVE the tent idea! If you have time to send me instructions I would love it! Glad to see things are going well for you guys :). -Serina

Anonymous said...

I love the Who Loves Ellie book. However, you could have made it soooo much bigger (with a lot more pictures).
As for the pockets on the bunkbed tent, save that project for next Christmas.
I think you get your unpicking gene from ME!
GMB

Sherrie said...

I'm super impressed. Really.

lindsayh said...

I absolutely love this! I'm trying to make a tent like this for my kids' bunk beds, but I'm a bit lost on the PVC pipe. Could you tell me what size pieces of pipe and connectors you used? I think I can figure out how to put it together from your photo, but some measurements would help a lot! :) Thanks!

eastangel28 said...

just wondering if you could post a pic of the inside, the pvc pipes and stuff, my daughter has a loft bed and i'm thinking of making her a tent since the store bought one broke in a month

Amateur Steph said...

I have posted pics of the inside at http://excitedandconfused.blogspot.com/2012/07/pictures-of-top-bunk-bed-tent-and.html. I'll link to it under the picture too.

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