The Making Of Cars!

When I started planning for Zeke's Cars party I thought of lots of fun things to do, but most of them were for bigger kids....Zeke is only going to be two though! I wanted to think of things that would be fun for him and for the older kids as well. That's when I came up with the idea to have a "drive-in". I went online and found a blog where the mom made cars out of cardboard boxes. As if I don't have enough going on let's just add making 13 cars from cardboard boxes to it! Seriously I do this to myself, but I love it at the same time! My biggest worry was finding the right boxes. I was sure I was going to have to hunt around forever to find them. Enter Costco! I guess I had never paid attention to the giant box towers over by the food court at our Costco, but I grab as many as I could fit in our cart and headed home. 

Next came the designing. I used the blog and the images of the different Cars for inspiration. First I drew the outline of the car on both sides and then used a box cutter to cut them out. These boxes were nice and sturdy which was great since I would be really jeopardizing the structural integrity of them.

After the cutting came the folding and taping.

And here is the body of Lightning McQueen. I was super stoked with how easy it actually was...I was sure this was going to be so difficult.

The second one was even easier...say hello to Red the firetruck!

This is Doc Hudson!

And her is Tow Mater...he was really fun! In one day I made 9 Cars - McQueen, Red, Sarge, Flo, Ramone, Doc, Sally, Holly and Tow Mater.

Here is Holley Shiftwell after her paint job.

After the paint jobs I had to do the finishing work like the eyes, wheels and any extra decorations. For King I just free handed the Dinoco symbol by looking at the King car we have. I think it turned out pretty good.

For Ramone I just copied the flames from the images online and then cut them out.

Tow Mater was the one I was most concerned about because of all the extras. I have to say....I'm super pleased how it turned out. He's so cute!!!

Sarge and his angry eyes!

Holley Shiftwell all finished!

Flo and her nice white (well off white) sides! 

Red was the hardest to make him actually look like Red from the movie since he's just a big square box. 

Fillmore turned out good. I didn't add any of his decorations on the sides because I was leaving that for the kids to do at the party! The kids ended up being so busy with other things that they never did decorate him. I guess I'll have my kids add the graffiti to him instead! 

Sally with her fancy wheels! 

Sheriff turned out really well. Jack was very insistent on him having that flap above his eyes like a sheriff hat. I had never noticed it before, but when I found our Sheriff car sure enough he has a little brim of a hat on top. Jackson is so observant! 

McQueen of course is my favorite one! He turned out awesome. During the course of this project I only spent $16 for 4 cans of spray paint...2 red and 2 aqua color for Fillmore and Flo. I need to return one of the cans of aqua since I ended up not using it so it will actually have cost around $12. The boxes were from Costco, duct tape was from Pa and then I got a bunch of other spray paint from various people. When I first decided I was going to do this I told a bunch of people and then when I got to thinking about it I thought... what have I gotten myself into! I was sure it wasn't going to be possible, but I didn't want to go back on my word so I just toughed it out and I'm glad I did. I think the kids really enjoyed them!