Hello,
today I have again an ingenious #DIY for you. As you all know and maybe can’t hear it anymore, the prince loves excavators and construction site vehicles of all kinds. No matter where I am, when I see something that depicts excavators I have to get it or remember it.
I am currently a huge fan of Pinterest. This app inspires me and I always look what great things I can build or craft. Since the prince is a baby, I build him toys out of cardboard boxes. Now I have set in my head to build him a car out of a cardboard box.
At my new job then a great, sturdy cardboard box smiled at me and so was project:
A car made of cardboard
What do you need to make a car out of cardboard:
-a large sturdy cardboard box-measures depending on the age of the child. The prince is ca. 1meter tall and I had a cardboard box that was 70cm long x40cm wide
-small cardboard for interior
-Masking Tape or Ducktapes
Yes and off we go.
If you have a cardboard like me, that means with an additional lid, then you have to use the lid for the window pane and the
Use license plates. This is how my box looks like before. First you cut 2 half circles out of the cardboard to simulate the doors and to make the entrance easier.
The cut out half circles you can use for the side mirrors now.Either leave the side mirrors as shown and just draw the outline or do as I did and cut out the mirror so you can see through it.
Now come the wheels. If you really want the car to actually
can "drive", then you can have wheels made out of wood. I have decided for the cardboard plate variant. Since our theme was excavator, there were of course excavator cardboard plates.
I used the hot glue gun on these and glued them on so they wouldn’t touch the floor.
Now it goes to the windshield. For this now the lid of the cardboard box is used. You cut a rectangle of approx. 35x40cm. Half of it is the hood and the 2. half will be the disk. Again, you can either just hint at the window or cut it out like I did. If you cut it out, you have to reinforce the frame. We used Ducktape for this. The lovely Bea from Tollabea has some cool craft tips for Ducktape.
If the disk is worked on together with the hood, it is fastened again with hot glue to the cardboard, so that it looks then like this:
As you can see here I got some help from my mom. So I could already build the 1. License plate
design and glue the front headlights from muffin molds, while you refined the windshield.
Now it was time for the interior. The steering wheel and the glove box. I wanted a steering wheel that you can turn. I went into our basement and rummaged through our tools. We needed something that is connected with steering wheel(2 paper plates) and another small cardboard box.
See if you can find something like that, have a better solution than me or build a steering wheel that you can’t move. The steering wheel consists of 2 glued together paper plates(in excavator design) and this thing.( one
Screw help for our living room lamp)
All this we attached to a small cardboard, which we glued to the sides and the bottom of the interior.Next door an open glove compartment was made. Fold a rectangle so that it fits into the gap and glue it too. a "floor" for another storage area we glued with zebra duck tape and put in.
Here is no limit to your imagination. You can design the interior as you like. When the prince sat down in the cardboard car, we noticed that his feet had little space. According to this, we have cut open the cardboard from the steering wheel at the bottom. This gave more space.
You just try it out and that’s how a unique piece is created.
Now we have attached the rear lights and designed a license plate for the back. I also wanted the prince to be comfortable. I still had the mattress from the travel bed. This consisted of 3 foam pieces of the same size. I wrapped these foam parts with sewn cushion covers made of excavator fabric(Thanks to Heike and Nadine) and one now serves as a seat cushion for the car.
Yes and ready was the excavator convertible for the prince. He was totally into it and also diligently helped and picked out colors. After 10 minutes he realized that he can slide over the ground by fast forward and backward movements and really "drives". He exults and loves his car above all else.
We use it almost every day to go to the seaside and to construction sites and experience wonderful things, and it cost approx. 2 hours of time and if you extrapolate it 10€ of material.
What do you think about it? How would you design the car, or have you perhaps already made one?? How would you attach the steering wheel?
What do you think about the idea?
I wish you a lot of fun and if you don’t understand my instructions, don’t hesitate to ask me.