DIY: Frugal Children's Play Tent

This project has been on my to-do list for quite some time.  After seeing some super fancy tutorials (i.e. I couldn't follow the sewing tutorial if my life depended on it), I put this project on hold.  When I bought my girls hoola hoops last week from the Dollar Store, I remembered this project again.  The next day as I was cleaning my hall cabinet, I stumbled across some curtains that I'd made a long time ago for the girls room but hadn't used in a long time....and then I had my "ah-ha" moment!  

What you'll need:

A hoola hoop

2 curtains

scissors

thick string

hanger

clips (if you don't want to sew the curtains together...I plan to use these again someday)
packaging tape

Start by cutting a slit in your hoola hoop.  Thread the curtains on to the hoop.  Next, you're going to need to tie strings throughout the hoop.  If your curtain does not have a slotted top, you will need to make small little cuts in the curtain in order to wrap the string around the hoop at different intervals around the ring (see above).  Now use the packaging tape to attach the hoop back to itself.  Wrap plenty of tape around the slit in the hoop to ensure that it won't come undone.  I moved my curtains around to cover the taped-up cut in the hoop so that it would be hidden.

I tied 7 strings around my hoop.  Each piece of string was about 2 feet long (which after tied and brought together = 1 foot long), and I simply used a roll of string from the Dollar Store (is this stuff called twine? I'm not sure).  I tied each string in a knot around the hoop.  Then, I tied all of them together in a knot in the middle (see above pic).

Next, I used a regular plastic hanger and tied the strings around the center of the hanger.  The cotton curtains I used were fairly light, so there isn't much bend in the hanger, but if you are using heavier material you may want to use a sturdier hanger, such as wood, to hold up your hoop.

Once the string was tied to the hanger, I realized that the knot might slip down to the side of the hanger.  So, I used the leftover strings from the knot, and used packaging tape to tied the strings to each side of the knot on the hanger.  

The sheets will separate in the wind, so you'll want to attach them somehow.  You can choose to either sew them together, OR, if you plan to use the curtains again someday, you may just want to use some sort of clip to attach them together temporarily.  You can see how I clipped them together in the pic above.

Now, using the hanger, hang your tent anywhere you'd like!  We hung ours from the apple tree in the backyard so the kids could read some books.

Aren't they cute in there?  Ellie forgot her Bible out there (seen in her hand) and, of course, the sprinklers came on this morning ;(  Boo!  

They loved it!  

Note:  If you have an almost 2 year old boy, expect him to yank the whole thing down in a twirling frenzy and snap the hanger!  Don't worry, though, you should be able to quickly re-attach it to a new hanger ;)

Have fun!