10 Loft Bed No-Sew Felt Tent Tutorial

We purchased my youngest daughter a new loft bed a few weeks ago. This is the one we bought:

It is solid wood (no particle board!) and is a perfect height.  UPDATE: Lots of people have emailed me asking where I got the bed - it is the Popsicle Mid-Loft Sleeper and I bought mine through O.co (AWESOME customer service at that site!).  I had a promo code and it was free shipping, so it was the best deal on the bed I could find, but you can find it all over online.  There is even a version with a slide.  I do want to mention that the first bed we received was missing the headboard and the footboard, and four of the pieces (I think it was the four bottom legs) didn't have holes on one side.  O.co was amazing and shipped us a new bed OVERNIGHT and paid for the old bed to be shipped back.  The second bed came in and there were no issues.  If you are a Facebook fan you might remember me posting about my experiences with both O.co and UPS (don't even get me started on them!).

 I loved the little tent that you could purchase to go underneath it:

But I wasn't a fan of the $89 price tag.  Once we got the bed set-up the more and more I thought about how much she would enjoy that fun little tent.  After taking a peek at the picture above I said to myself, I could make that!  And felt would be the easiest!  And if I wanted it to be even easier, I could just use my trusty hot glue gun!  I thought about breaking out the sewing machine for parts, but I didn't even need to!  Wanna know how to make one for your little ones bed?  It's super easy!  And I bet it would work for a bunk bed too.

I measure the length of the bed - approximately 73" wide and the height - approximately 29".  Then I set off for Joann's to pick up some felt.  I purchased 2.5 yards of blue felt that was 70" wide.  I also purchased a half yard of pink and a half yard of white.  I purchased a remnant of clear vinyl and some small sheets of felt.  I also purchased a package of glue sticks.  I got everything for under $20.

Now that you have the materials, let's get started.  I'll tell you how I did it and then I'll give you some tips on what I would have done differently.  I measured the sheet of felt and cut out a 73" x 29" rectangle.  I then used some tape and tacked it up under the bed.  I figured out where I wanted the door and made a rough cut.  I did the same with the window.  I then left the room to grab something and very stupidly left the scissors within reach of my 2.5 year old who decided she didn't like the dimensions of either the door or the window {yes, those cuts you see in the picture above}.  OOPS!  So yes, the door opening was a bit wider than I planned which caused problems when I created the door, but more on that later.

Now take down the template and head to wherever you are going to create the rest of the tent.  I had been going back and forth with doubling up on the fabric so it was thicker and sturdier.  I decided that yes I wanted the double-thickness, so I traced my template and cut out another piece from the blue felt.  (Now here is where you could have saved yourself some time and keeping your felt off the bolt folded in half, cut out the dimensions needed and used the fold as the bottom portion of the tent - make sense?).  

I then took my glue gun and glued all edges of the tent shut - including the window seams and the door seams.

I then cut out strips that I wanted to use as liners and bars for the windows.  The 4 liner pieces were about 2.5" wide.  The 4 bar pieces were 1" wide by a little longer than the length/width of my window.   I took the liner pieces and lined them up with the windows and then clipped one corner so that I would have nice corners.  I did this again for the other end so that it fit nicely in the width of the window.  I then did this for the 3 other strips.  

Glue these on the front, then wrap them around to the back and glue down.  For the bars I glued two strips together and then on the backside of the tent I lined them up and glued them down.  

I then cut out the vinyl and glued that on the back as well (I glued onto the felt and then laid the vinyl down onto it).  The vinyl will keep little hands from being able to grab onto the edge of the window and pulling down, stretching the fabric, etc.

For the door I had a little problem because my daughter made it bigger than I wanted.  My 1/2 yard of fabric was no longer wide enough to cover the opening so I took some white and pink, and glued them together.  I then glued those to the top of the door opening.  I added some ribbon so that we could tie up the door if desired.  I also added her house number which is the day she was born on.

 Now you can decorate as you wish.  I added a mailbox and a flower box with some super easy flowers.  They are just circles glued together with some stems attached.  I glued velcro onto the back so that they would stick to the house.

Lastly glue some velcro along the top of the house.  I then stapled the other pieces of velcro to the inside of the bed.  Attach and play!

I had one extra step because of the little shelves on either side of my daughters bed.  For it to lie flat I had to cut a little notch:

 Laying flat:

 

And the final result:

 

And sleeping in her "house bed":

Linked with these great blogs: Today's Creative Blog || Skip to My Lou || Tip Junkie || Home Stories A2Z || Not Just a Housewife || Sugar Bee Crafts || Creative Itch || Someday Crafts  || A Glimpse Inside || Gluesticks || Somewhat Simple || Tatertots & Jello || Serenity Now ||  Making the World Cuter