the free teepee {and the failed DIY tutorial}

i've been seeing teepee's everywhere.
on fun instagram feeds. on pinterest. in my son's imagination.
but it's far down on the to-so list.
far.
far down on the budget.
very far.
i just knew there must be a way to make one for free.
in fact, i feel this is true about most projects. they might not be perfect, but sometimes i'm not going for perfect. just completion :)

enter brain inspiration.
and me + 3 kids in a local neighbor's giant bamboo forest.
and the largest cutting sheers known to man.
and me + 3 kids dragging 9 bamboo poles, each 14 feet long.
it was far from inspiring...and much more closely related to insanity

there's nothing a mini-van can't load up and haul home.
14 foot bamboo poles proved it.

there are various DIY tutorials that i found.

the "drill holes and string rope" looked simple and picturesque.

the reality was more like a 3 ring circus of twisting and turning bamboo and instantly knotted and tangled rope.

grrr. clearly i chose the wrong tutorial.

we eventually ended up teetering atop a 12 foot ladder and finagling the L O N G  14 foot legs with large amounts of irritation...and a whole lot of "make it work"

and voila. it was so huge and awesome, there was no way to cover it with any of my original seamstress/pinteresting ideas.

and so it sat.

 it looks like this for several days...

all naked and skeleton like.

and then one day, 3 huge drop cloths disappeared from my husband's tool bench. i have no idea where they could have gone...but i'm sure they would have made a great teepee covering :)