DIY: TeePee

Lily's mama found this site which gave great instructions for building your own teepee!

After reading her notes several times and sketching out each step, I finally thought, "I can do this!"

There are so many for-purchase teepees out right now that are really cute but so expensive.
Like this one from the Land of Nod for $150
or this one from Restoration Hardware for $270
I spent a grand total of $50... and it could be done for much less if you already have some of the supplies on hand!

So here it is: instructions and all!

I bought one 9'x6' canvas drop cloth from Home Depot ($10). I then sketched it out on paper and decided how to divide up my canvas in order to fit the whole teepee. I mainly followed those DIY instructions linked above with only slight changes. Each of the six sections are numbered above, if you're following along and making your own.

This is the floor plan. I figured out that each base wall would be about 35 inches long.

And then I decided that I wanted to create pockets for the sticks rather than having them exposed like most of the DIY tutorials show. No splinters here!!! Not to mention having the sticks be a part of the actual structure makes the tent a lot more stable. So I chose to overlap the seams by 2 inches on each side.

I marked it all out with tape (because I didn't have anything else handy that wouldn't stain the cloth)

And cut out all of my triangle pieces.

This is a terrible picture but I wanted to show that I ironed all of the seams and then pinned my 2inch overlapping pockets before I started sewing.

I brought my sewing machine over so that Lily could help me sew. I thought she might be interested and she really was. She was such a good helper, too! 

Lily chose this yellow splatter-paint fabric for the doors. (on the sketch above, I basically replaced the two end triangles that are labeled 'door' for this colorful fabric.) I was picturing a big bold print of some kind, but Lily really had strong feelings about this one and it is her teepee after all! The more I looked at it, the more I liked it.

We also picked out some fun trim.

She rolled herself up in it like a burrito. I don't know if she understood that it would stand up when it was done or if she thought I was making her an enormous blanket with doors.

And here it is! Mostly finished! Bryan is holding it because the holes haven't been drilled yet for the leather string that I got to hold the sticks together. (getting the darn thing to actually stand up was a little trickier than I expected. It just takes a little manipulating. I'm also going to put in straps to tie the doors together so that they can close or be drawn open. Oh, and I'm going to stain the sticks so they are dark.
I'll post a final pic when it's totally finished and set up at Lily's house!

So that's basically that!
to make your own you'll need:

• one 9'x6' canvas drop cloth (I got mine at Home Depot) ~$10
• six 6 1/2' long 1"x1" square sticks (also got these at Home Depot) ~$12
• two yards of whatever fabric if you're making the exact tent I made ~$20... you can leave this out if you want or use some fabric you already have! I think it could be cool to paint a pattern on the canvas instead. I also don't think it would look bad at all to have it be really simple and only canvas. But really, the sky's the limit with extra fabric... you could add a panel to the middle all the way around, or to the bottom of each side... you could cut holes for window flaps in the sides etc... get as fancy or as simple as you want!
• trim ~$3 for the pom pom trim, ~$3 for the leather string, ~$3 for the feathers I got to go with the leather string

Good Luck if you choose to tackle one of these for yourself and send your pics my way! I'd love to see what you do!