Princess Pavillion Tent

Woke the kids from their naps today to come see this:

This tent has been in my head for months. I'd wanted to

finish it during the winter so the kids could play with it

during the boring cold weeks indoors. That never happened,

of course. I am relieved to be done with it in time for the

summer, though, for two reasons. First, our deck gets really

hot in the mornings when the girls want to be outside playing.

Now they can hide in the shade of this tent and read or eat

a mid-morning snack, or hold tea parties. Second, it's in

time for garage sale season. If anyone wants to make

this, hit the garage sales for used quilts/duvet covers or

sheets- they are the cheapest way to procure

large pieces of fabric!

But more on the making later.

Back to the kids' newest toy first:

In case you haven't guessed yet, this is a table tent, or a

cubby house, or glorified fitted tablecloth. Essentially, there's

a table underneath all that holding it up. I'd wanted to go the

usual way of table tents and dress up our rectangular dining

table. Unfortunately, it had a post leg right in the middle

of it. This card table languishing in our storage closet,

though, had the requisite four corner (if a round table can

have corners, I mean) legs, so it got picked instead.

No complaints - I love anything round.

I waited till I found the right kind of thrifted bedlinen at a

recent garage sale- a two-toned pink twill comforter for $2.

I ripped the seams apart, threw away the batting, and put

it through the hottest laundry cycle. I already had the dark

blue and pale yellow bedsheets from last year's garage sales,

waiting to be turned into this but they're thin, and

would only be good in supporting roles.

Here's the front of the tent, with a curtain opening, courtesy

of the yellow sheet and some scrap gingham.

The curtains tie back with little straps that fasten

to the inner wall with velcro.

To let in light, there are three domed windows

with more of the same yellow curtains and velcro tie-backs.

Ah, but you all probably want to know about that there roof.

Here's the mass of dowel spines holding it up, teepee-style

with a little pointy jellyfish cap thingy to cover that all up

and some polka-dotted wooden beads knotted on

ribbon tentacle-streamers to give it a little weight.

So yes, to answer your question, the roof is a dud.

The interior of the tent is only as high as the table top.

That seemed to me an awful waste of space just for aesthetics.

So I added a couple of zippers to open the front panel so

the girls could invite their dollies to a party in the attic.

Attics can get dark so I added three flap- down vinyl

windows. We close the windows when there are no dollies

visiting. But today, the dollies were happy to attend

and play peekaboo (silly dollies!)

But here I will show you my favorite part of the princess tent:

Two hanging baskets flanking the door, with hidden slots

for budding gardeners to plant felt flowers in.

No tutorial for this particular tent - too many little details -

but here is a printable instruction sheet for a basic pavillion-

style tent. You could do a roof for a square table, too,

but a round table allows for equal-length dowel spines.

Sorry if it looks like a Math worksheet.

There's Physics in there, too (yay)!

Some notes:

1. I used 1/4" dowels from craft stores. They were about 60 cents a piece (regular price) and were a standard 36" long. I cut them down to 29" for this project.
   
2. I used craft-weight fusible interfacing for the frames and cross-bars of the windows.
   
3. Twill or drill is a good weight material to use. Typical bedsheets are too thin.
   
4. Embellish before you sew the main pieces together. Otherwise there is a lot of fabric to handle around the sewing machine.
   
5. This whole project cost about $20, I'm estimating.
6. While measuring the table for this, I noticed that the tabletop was screwed on to the circular metal frame. That made me wonder if it might also be unscrewed and removed, leaving only the empty frame and legs. This might allow a person access to the space under the roof. But I decided against it because I suspect (but did not test out) that the circular piece of fabric holding the two halves together provides some useful supporting tension. There's a good chance that I'm wrong so if anyone successfully makes this sans tabletop, tell me, tell me!
   

Here are some great ideas for rectangular table tents made by some very talented folks:

• Melissa at Day to Day.
  
• Jamie at Nothing Fancy, who also did a follow-up post on Tips for Making a Table Tent when she made a matching one for her little girls out of a piano bench!
  
• Ashley at Make It And Love It
  
• Angie at this and that
  
• Abby's fort for boys at Sew Much Ado and
• some lovely playhouses on etsy here.

Speaking of boys, here's a printable idea sheet for a

variation of this pavillion tent - a rocketship. I'd planned

to make this for the girls because too much Cinderella and

not enough NASA makes for a skewed childhood. But I also

want to make them a rectangular playhouse out of our

kitchen table for the winter, with all the fixings, so I'll pass

on the rocketship for now. Still, here on paper are the ideas

from my head for anyone who'd like to try them. If you do,

please let me know - I'd love to see how it turns out!

Thought of more variations on the round table shape.

For instance, Mushroom: make a padded puffy roof in
red fabric with white spots and have the kids dress
up as smurfs. Or Barn: use all-silver vinyl, omit doors
and windows and pretend it's full of grain.
Or Circus Tent: Make a gaudy paneled roof, add colorful
triangular bunting all round and paint the kids' noses
red. Or make a floor with a round hole, wedge it in a
sturdy tree, elect one child to be Moon-Face and
play Faraway Tree (sigh........) all day.

* Edited to add new insane idea: Dress tent up as a

birthday cake and use it as a birthday party prop!

Worse, make it out of flannel (cheaper than felt) and cut

giant felt fondant shapes and let the birthday guests

decorate their own oversize cake, then take pictures

beside it for thank-you notes!

Must stop now. Must stop now. Must stop now.

Must find chocolate. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Round tents = endless possibilities.
Round = happiness.

The kids rather liked their new princess tent. And I like

it because it is finished. But also because it can be folded

away into a small neat package when not in use (dowels

removed). After exploring it thoroughly and profusely

thanking me (she was extra-polite in her post-nap

disorientation) Emily asked, "where is the mailbox?" I let

her in on the secret that we'd be making a serious

playhouse for the winter for which we'd be sure to include

a mailbox-with-slot, along with interior embellishments.

Emily has been informed that she needs to contribute ideas

since it will be hers, Jenna's and Kate's, so she's very excited.

Yawn! Off to bed now. On to some quicker projects in the

coming days. No, no more bags for a while- there are so

many things more exciting than those to tackle! But I will

come back to the bags eventually, I promise!

*Edited AGAIN (sorry) to correct something in the Rocketship

printable instructions. A night or two after I'd posted this, my

brain said to me, "Hey you, I think you meant grommets."Now,

I seldom know what my brain is saying, so this was not

surprising. My brain continued, "You wrote "rivets". You meant

"grommets"." Now this I understood. Blast. I sat up in bed

(I was at that moment before I slipped into blissful

unconsciousness) and knew I had to change it.

My brain, though, has a wicked streak sometimes, and

that night it gleefully said, (Snigger) "You can't change it

now. You have to sleep now. Ha ha ha ha! It will have to

wait till the morning! And you'll be busy then too! It will

be months before it will get done! Ha ha ha!"

Vile thing.

Anyway it hasn't been months - but it's been a while. Those

of you familiar enough with those little metal things will

know a person can't thread a cord through rivets. I've

reuploaded the corrected instructions now, so all is well.

But apologies to those compliant fans who actually did

try to and had to drink heavily after.

It wasn't you - it was me.