A Cool Play Tent Decorated With Neckties DIY

This DIY play tent is adorable with these neckties.  Strips of fabric with finished or unfinished images will look nice as well.  Ribbons and beads will add a fantasy look for a girl.  You can also use mesh instead of a heavy fabric.  Thanks to blue i style for the cute idea.

Boy Mom Madness continues, and today we are talking D.I.Y. for the B.O.Y.  This is a topic I just love, and it’s the perfect opportunity for me to share a tutorial that is almost a year overdue! When I designed my son Beckett’s “big boy” room, I spent many weeks blogging about the DIY projects in the room {no less than 15 DIYs!}, until I feared that you must be getting sick of hearing about that room {because I was getting sick of writing about it}. I promised to return with the details of the few remaining projects, and now I’m finally making good on that promise by sharing the tutorial for the necktie-topped hanging play tent.

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost a year since we hung that tent in the corner and called Beckett’s bedroom complete! My two year old is now a three year old, and he still enjoys the play tent in his room just as much as he did on day one. And the feeling is mutual! This tent – a collaboration between my mom and I – really is one of my very favorite projects – EVER!

My mom is the seamstress among us, so she did all of the heavy lifting on this project – but it took a lot of figuring and experimenting on both of our parts to figure out how to lay out the ties on the top of the tent – so that is the focus of this tutorial.

SUPPLIES FOR NECKTIE-TOPPED HANGING PLAY TENT:

• Sewing machine
• McCall’s Sewing Pattern M5827 for Play Canopy {modified to suit your needs}
• Hula Hoop {we used 30″ hoop}
• Fabric for tent & cushion inside tent {adjust pattern requirements based on any height and width adjustments}
• Batting for cushion
• Men’s Neckties {we used 33 total – about half collected from family, the other half thrifted
• Ribbon, Fray Check, and Fabric Marker {if you want to label the ties}
• Straight pins & a needle
• Scissors
• Thread {several colors to coordinate with the colors of the ties
• Small piece of wool felt
• Buttons {2 large buttons; additional are optional}

MAKING THE TENT:
Since there is no reason to reinvent the wheel, my mom purchased a play canopy pattern from McCall’s and used that as a starting point. The dimensions of the two tents in the pattern were much too big in diameter for the space I had available in Beckett’s room, so my mom adjusted the size down. And since the tent hangs from the ceiling, she also made length adjustments to accommodate the ceiling height in the room.

For the fabric, I selected an inexpensive navy and white pinstriped men’s suiting fabric {if you’re in Denver – Colorado Fabrics is the best place to shop for specialty and decorator fabrics at great prices}.

Neither my mom nor I really cared for the shape of the door opening in the McCall’s tent pattern, so that was another easy adjustment my mom made. Rather than creating the squared doorway with flaps, she instead slightly overlapped the two front tent panels, allowing the panels to hang closed or to be pulled back to create a doorway.

Images from blue i style.

For the full instructions visit blue i style.