DIY Simple Kid's Tent

You may have seen this tutorial floating around blogland awhile back:

Cakies

I've got little boys, and we go camping a lot.  It was a no-brainer to have a tent.  I decided we HAD to make it. And while I like this beautiful floral sheet that she used in the tutorial, that wasn't going to work for us.  I went hunting for fabric at thrift shops and garage sales, but I only turned up floral stuff.  Which just wasn't going to fly.  And then, at a garage sale, my little shopper A spotted the best sheet ever.

Perfect. How much more little boy can you get?? And guess how much he got it for?  Free. They wanted 10 cents, but we bought so much other stuff, and saw how much A liked it, so free it was.  Can't beat that.  That's my little garage saler.

So we went to work, following the tutorial.  I kept all the good parts of the sheet, with the cool trim print and such, and just cut the width off and did a very messy fold-over hem on the top to make it fit.  My kids won't care as long as it's still a tent.  I could have trimmed it off, but I wasn't too worried about it.

But once I did all that, I didn't like how the sides sagged into the tent. There was less playing room, and it wouldn't stay tight across the sides and bottom.  What do you do?  Modify!  I used FOE (fold-over elastic - I have tons of this stuff, fantastic) to make 3 evenly spaced loops on each leg.

So 12 loops all together.  This also kept down the climbing out the sides of the tent under the fabric. Still happens, but it's not as easy to do.  See how tight the sides are now?

The other problem we had with it was instability.  The rod wasn't a super snug fit, so it was easy for the kids to knock the tent askew, and if they hit a leg hard enough, it could pop off the rod and the tent could collapse.  Not cool.  So another modification - rubber bands.

And from the inside looks like this.

I put one on each side of the legs on the rod, so 4 bands total.  Make them tight.  Now the legs can't slide towards the center or off the rod.  Simple, fast, and cheap solution.

Now the tent stands solidly and I don't worry about it falling on anyone. Also, the rubber bands make it easier to fold up and carry around without the legs falling off.

It looks cute, it was cheap to make, and easy. On nice days, we move it outside, and on rainy days, it's a great place to pretend to camp.

And no one EVER has any fun in the tent.  Promise.