The Bandanna Blog - I made a tent!

WHAT?  When Springs Creative asked us for new ideas of what to make with the Hav-A-Hank Bandannas, I only thought about it for a few minutes.  I quickly responded that I could make a tent.  WHY would I say that?  A tent - was I crazy?  Their response to me was - "Great!  How many bandannas do you need?"  30 sounded about right.   I did a little research (Pinterest) and found some great Kid's Tee-Pee's that were completely homemade and looked easy enough. 

It looked like one quick trip to the hardware store was going to do it.  I bought four, 3/4" dowels that were 5 feet long and cost about $4 a piece and a canvas drop cloth 6 ft. by 9 ft. that was about $8.  Got out for less than $25 for a do it yourself craft project, not bad.

The Pinterest Tee-Pee's only had the drop cloth draped around the poles, not sure that was the look I was going for.  I ended up drilling a hole through the top of the poles about 5 inches down from the top.  I threaded paracord thru and around this and tied it off with a hundred knots. 


I wanted to cut 4 pie shaped pieces out of the drop cloth and cover them with bandannas then sew these panels together.  Seemed like a plan.  I fit the panels together and pinned them - I felt like a dressmaker now working with a larger than life dummy.  To make things difficult I wanted the bandannas centered on each panel - this took a bit longer than I expected but the finished look was well worth the staying up till 3am doing this.   I now had a really sturdy tent with the canvas completely covered in bandanna fabric.  I made an opening for a door and made a little privacy panel out of my leftover bandannas.  I cut strips of bandanna to cover the paracord and knots.  Finished,  and I have to say I have a darned good looking Tee-Pee!

Now the part I had not thought about.  How do I box this little gem up?  We did not have any 6 foot long boxes nor could I find one long enough that was only 7 inches wide and 7 inches deep. That evening we were at COSTCO and I saw a lady in the checkout line with BIG empty boxes.  I asked her where she got them.  I was directed to a fellow in the back that was kind enough to walk me through their area of GIANT empty boxes, not the ones you find up front.  These were big, really big ones.  I mean these would not even fit in my large SUV.  I spied one from an outdoor umbrella up on a shelf and asked if I could have it, yep he got it for me.  If I could have only gotten two I would have been good.  I ended up taking this box and adding 18 inches of homemade box to the top of it.  One roll of packing tape later and I had a mailing box.  Shipped it FedEx to Springs Creative and hope to get it back in my homemade box.  I plan on giving it to the little 4 year old boy across the street. 

Totally not sure what I will make next out of bandannas - could be anything I suppose!