Monthly Project: Pack n' Play Clubhouse

Here we are at the end of another month. And for this monthly project I have a very special upcycle project 

I, like most first time parents, was so excited to buy a pack n' play while I was expecting baby Blue. I thought it would be so great. I could use it as a portable crib and play area. And I would have somewhere to put the baby.

However I can only recall using it once or twice. And by the time we had baby Lion it had turned into a catch all for all the various baby toys we acquired. (I did try to find the inner piece so I could let Lion nap in there, but I only was able to find a couple of the poles.)

And well as you can see below it took a lot of abuse.

Somehow it even ended up with a couple of rips up the side. Which Lion loved to use to crawl into and explore the depths of toys inside.

So I did a little exploring on Pinterest. and I didn't quite find the perfect upcycle idea for me. But what I did find was a couple of ideas that I thought if I put them together it would turn the pack n' play into a perfect little clubhouse.

Project

Turn the Pack n' Play into a Clubhouse

instructions from Its Baby Time

and this picture

Results

(I originally wanted to make this for my July project, but I was waiting for the patio to be finished. Which its still not. But I think this is actually a better end of the summer upcycle because it puts new use to all those leftover pool noodles!)

To be completely truthful, I didn't actually follow any of the instructions from Its Baby Time. I kind of had a plan in my head of how I wanted to do it. And I just kind of did it.

I of course had to use on of the short sides of my pack n' play as a door since I already had rips in the mesh. (I actually used some of this mesh as the overlay for my M is for Maze activity book page)

Cutting out the mesh was a little trickier than I thought it was going to be; mainly because it was tricky getting the scissors and the right angles. It was also difficult making  sure that I cut all of the mesh out without leaving an excess and without cutting into the solid parts.

I pushed through and managed to get rid of it all and made a little door for the boys. (I could have stop right then. They loved being able to go in and out of the pack n' play easily!)

I tried just putting a sheet over the top, but since I lost my mobile, there was nothing to help keep it up and it just kind of sunk into the middle. (This is when I searched out more pack n' play upcycles and I stumbled upon the picture version of the clubhouse above. And I thought using pool noodles was a genius idea to add some structure to the top).

I made my pool noodle structure a little different. I decided to go with just two along the sides and on that reach across the full length of the pack n' play. I played around with the noodles a little bit.  I wanted to make sure they fit together properly, but also that I cut the side deep enough so that the sheet would cover them easily.

Once I was happy I taped the tops together.

And then I used a doll needle and some yarn to tie down the ends to the pack n' play. (If you leave the noodles free than its hard to put the sheet over them without them going everywhere.) You could also use zip ties to tie it down.

All together my pool noodle structure is a little wonky. And I'm probably going to untape the noodles, readjust and sew them together.

Here's how the Clubhouse turned out:

As you can see the noodles added some much needed structure to the top.

As soon as I put it all together Lion had to come check out the new digs. 

And Blue figured out another way to get in and out of the clubhouse

Next step is to put it on the patio (whenever that gets finished!)