DIY: FORT BUILDING KIT

Late last year, while watching the kids make forts out of blankets and quilts--and getting frustrated with the whole thing coming down time after time...I thought--surely there must be something online, an idea or a tip, that can help with this dilemma...I only had to google FORT MAKING to stumble upon this amazing gem of inspiration and how-to.  This Saltwater Kids blog tutorial on a how to make a FORT MAKING KIT was a huge help when I got it together to make a  kit for a birthday present for our neighbor friend but that was last year and I haven't really thought about it...

until this weekend rolled around...

Greg is still busy with the porch, and its STILL a ba-zillion degrees outside and I was thinking what ever could we do on a Sunday afternoon...the fort came back into mind and me and the kids sprung into action...

(First, let me state..this is a work in progress.  We plan to add onto this, making more panels...more rooms...pretty much, we are planning to take over the whole house!)

For a detailed step by step, please do check out the Saltwater Kids blog...seriously, it is so good--but for a quick summary and to see what I did, here goes:  I had acquired all the supplies when we made the first kit last year, so all I had to do was dig everything out from the basement...

here's what we used:

1) one flat twin sheet from our local thrift store--which was about $2.  We will add more sheets as we continue to expand and take over the house, but for now--we just started with one panel (aka sheet).

A variety of supplies from the dollar store including:

1) Nylon rope

2) cloth pins

3) suction cups

4) metal clips

5) flash lights/batteries

about $10.

One large t-shirt to cut into strips that get sewn to the corners and mid-points of the sheet.

$3.

I took about 12 inches of a t-shirt strip and sewed the loops to the four corners and mid-way length-wise on the edge.  I also sewed a loop in the middle on the underside because it might be good to have a loop on the underside to run a rope thru...just saying...always good to be prepared.  I reenforced all the stitches as shown.

We then applied the suction cups to the windows, to the glass door of the fire place...we strung up the sheet using cloth pins, clips and the nylon rope...

And there you go!! For the most part, it stayed up pretty well--dollar store items are a dollar for a reason... but MUCH better than trying to tie the corner of a quilt to a chair--and hoping it stays put.  This is as far as we got yesterday but we will continue for world domination as we add more panels... Thrift store sheets are cheap.

"Ok, Mom...your job is done--you can go now and no, you can't play with us!!"