DIY Tent and Doll Cots--for an 18 inch doll!

 

Hi friends!

Today I am over on Make It and Love It showing how to make doll cots for an 18 inch doll...and here on this blog I'm showing you how I threw together a tent for them as well!  

 My kids are really into their American Girl dolls right now.  They want all sort of big stuff for their dolls, but truthfully we just really don't have the space for it all!  This "camping" setup came about because I wanted something that would be a pretty large impressive set-up but could also be collapsed and stored easily.  

Both these cots and tent totally fit the bill!  Plus they are both really easy to put together.  It's a win win! 

I think it would be such a fun gift for a child, Wouldn't it be fun to make a tent "kit"?  It would be so cool to sew up a fabric bag and then put all of the tent pieces inside...

This project is  really pretty affordable too. The cots were about $10 to make.  The tents actually cost me nothing because I used pieces from this Fort Magic Fort Kit.  Don't have a fort magic kit?  No problem!  I'm going to show you how you can make this fort with just PVC pieces from the hardware store.  I priced out the PVC pipes at my local hardware store and you can get all of the pieces that you'll need for about $20.

I'd like to digress a little bit though and say that if you don't have a Fort Magic Kit you might want to look into getting one.  Santa brought our kit--and while it is expensive--it is my favorite kids toy hands down.  It comes with so many pieces!  I've left the kit accessible to my kids this summer and they are constantly building something new.  They've made a plane, an Eiffel tower, a space ship, a house, harry potter wands, and so much more that I'm probably forgetting. It somehow gets incorporated into all of my kids creative play.

My kids approve!  They love this set up!

Alright, who's ready to get started?

I'm going to provide the sizes and pieces that you'll need to make this tent if you were to purchase PVC pieces from the hardware store.  Then I'll show you lots of pieces so that you can see how it's constructed.

Here are the pieces I used from our Fort Magic kit:

Here are the pieces that you'll need if you buy PVC pieces from the hardware store: 

•  7 24 inch pieces of 1/2 inch PVC (purple pieces shown above)
• 8 11.5 inch 1/2 inch PVC pieces (blue pieces shown above)
• 4 5 inch 1/2 inch PVC pieces (dark purple shown above)
•  4 45 degree elbow angle pieces
• 4 "tee" pieces
• 6 90 degree side outlet elbow pieces
• You'll also need about 64 inches of fabric to drape over the fort shape.  64 inches will go to the ground on each of the sides.  My piece was actually a bit smaller than 64 inches so mine didn't go to the ground on each side.  You can always just drape a blanket over the ends too.

Note: All of your PVC joint pieces should be un-threaded.  This way you can just slip the PVC in.


Now let's look a little bit at how this fort was constructed. I took lots of pictures at different angles so you can see it better.

 I hope that these pictures are clear enough for you to make your own tent! Let me know if you have any questions about how it came together.  This is such a simple and easy DIY!

Just drape the fabric over the top and you are all set!  Also, don't forget to hop on over to Make It and Love It for the complete doll cot tutorial!

 Have a wonderful week everyone!!

XOXO,

Jill

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