I built a house and a barn!

With only 4 days to spare, I finally finished one of D's birthday gifts. YEAH!

I wanted to make a table tent for the kids for Christmas, but ran out of time. Fortunately D has an early birthday. I made our tent to fit my dining room table. My devious plan is to use it as incentive for the kids to help keep the dining room clean. The table has to be cleared and wiped and the floor swept after each meal so the tent can be set up. The toys have to be put away before the next meal or the tent will be in time out until after the following meal.

Since I am trying to use up my stash of fabric and spend as little as possible on gifts this year, I decided to use wovens instead of felt. The only things I didn't have in my stash were the silver for the watering trough and the red for the barn. I found a sheet set at the thrift store with 3 red pillowcases and a fitted sheet for $4.99. Score! My wonderful mother-in-law gave me the perfect fabric for the trough. The only downside to using woven fabric is appliqueing every piece to make sure it doesn't ravel. I think I used more thread on this one project than anything else I have sewn.

With two girls and three boys, I had a very hard time deciding on one design for our tent, so I chose two. Each "building" has one long and one short side of the table. It worked out great. All of the kids have declared it a hit. (I am so glad D is only turning two, and I don't have to hide his gifts while I am sewing. It makes life so much easier!) E even had to climb in for the photo shoot.