Thursday, August 27, 2009

Tepee to Fire Station

The grandkids LOVE pulling out this Tepee at my in-laws house & as they were playing in it a couple weeks ago, I decided I needed to make something for the boys at OUR HOUSE...

We had an Enrichment Night Exchange a couple of weeks ago & everyone brought stuff they no longer wanted & then everyone go to "shop" for new stuff and take whatever they wanted for free!
I scored 2 huge rolls of upholstery fabric...and have plans to make some {free} curtains for our new house from it!
But I got MORE than enough for curtains, so I decided I could use some for this project as well! I searched through my SCRAP BOX of random fabrics from various projects that I have worked on & found this Fire Engine print(gifted to me by my mom) & blue/red/yellow stripe(leftover from some burp cloths/blankies I made) and decided that we would make a FIRE STATION instead of a Tepee...
And so I measured and started cutting (with my helpers of course)...I only had a small scrap of the striped fabric, but it was just enough to get the letters I needed...

I've seen people who have done playhouses over a card table that they can set up for their kids, but I decided I needed to do one over my KITCHEN TABLE...since I have one of those high, bar height tables, so there is LOTS of room under there for the kiddos to play:)

I didn't know exactly what I wanted or how it was going to turn out, but I figured my 2 year old would be forgiving if it didn't turn out just right...End Result= He LOVES it!

(I had my niece(3 yrs) and nephew(4 yrs) over yesterday & they LOVED it too, so it is for older kids as well! :)I still have more windows to cut out of the back & some more details to put on it & I have to take in the sides a little bit more, so the corners that hang over the table are nice and crisp, but I'm happy with it so far & so far the total is $1.77 !!!(I bought some biased tape for the windows)

I'm TRYING to use all of my scraps and make things work.
Yesterday I cut a black ladder out of some old work out pants that I want to put on one of the sides & I used an old blue towel for the water coming out of the hydrant! You'd probably be surprised at what you can make from scraps laying around your house!


When I see a smile like this, it makes me happy I took the time to create something for my BOYS!!!

6 comments :

Sallie said...

Visiting from ASPTL and love your project. I have thought about doing some kind of fort and have one of those high dining tables. I'll be adding this to my project list.

Kendra said...

That is so cute! You are amazing!

Andy Porter said...

Ha ha! That is so much fun! I love that you used your creativity to create that smile in the last picture!! Priceless!!

Misty said...

Holy Cats! I love it! I came from P@P and I'm so glad you linked - you're SO creative and I def want to do this for my twins. They would die. :) You ARE amazing!

Sachiko said...

You did such a great job! My kids will want me to make this if they see your pictures.

Frugal Home Designs said...

That is awesome. My kids would love one of those. Great job.