How to Make a Tent Sign

Most campers won't need to worry about putting a sign on their tent. If you're running any sort of large outdoor recreational or educational event, however, this may become more of an issue. Often times, being able to put up a durable, weatherproof sign is the only way to identify a tent among several or even dozens of similar tents, and this helps keep the flow of students, tourists or other recreationists moving more smoothly.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Brightly colored paper
Plastic sleeve protector
Hole punch
2 lengths of 3mm cordage, at least 18 inches long

Step 1

Design and print out the sign using any word-processing program. Use large, solid-color letters and numbers so that your sign can be read from a distance. Use legal-size paper, if necessary, to accommodate the large print. Consider using brightly colored construction paper for printing to increase visibility.

Step 2

Slip the sign into a plastic sheet protector -- this works best if you've used letter-size paper -- or take it to a print shop to be laminated. If you take it to a print shop or if your plastic sheet protector doesn't have any holes in it, use a hole punch to punch a hole in each of the upper corners, or ask the print shop to do it for you.

Step 3

Tie each of two 18-inch or longer pieces of 3mm cordage into a loop. Girth-hitch each loop through one of the holes in your tent sign.

Step 4

Secure the sign to your tent with the lengths of cord secured to the sign corners. Depending on how your tent is designed, you can either loop the cord around the tent pole several times and then secure it with a half hitch, or you may need to get a little more creative. The toggles used to secure tent flaps are good places to secure tent signs, as are the loops used to guy-line a tent for stability. If your tent is guyed out, you can even attach the sign to the guy lines for greater visibility.

Tips & Warnings

Keep extra cordage and your hole punch on hand. If you find that you're facing inclement weather, you can punch a hole in each bottom corner of the sign and either tie it down to another available surface on the tent or stake the bottom end of the sign down just as you'd stake down a tent.

Depending on what sort of tent you're putting the sign up on and what sort of conditions you're operating under, you may find it useful to slip a piece of cardboard into the protector sleeve behind the paper sign, glue a piece of cardboard to the back of the sign, or even have the print shop print the tent sign on a piece of cardboard or other stiff medium.

Article Written By Marie Mulrooney

Marie Mulrooney has written professionally since 2001. Her diverse background includes numerous outdoor pursuits, personal training and linguistics. She studied mathematics and contributes regularly to various online publications. Mulrooney's print publication credits include national magazines, poetry awards and long-lived columns about local outdoor adventures.

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