adajohn010

       There is absolutely no two year old known to mankind that would not love his or her very own car playmat! And these, are sew easy for mom or dad to put together in approximately five minutes, as long as they have access to a sewing machine and two yards of fun, printed fabric!

       Just turn the right sides together and sew a straight stitch around the outside edges leaving a three inch opening. Turn the mat inside out so that the right sides (finished printed sides) are showing and sew the three inch opening shut with an invisible stitch.

       Iron the mat flat and then sew a few lines of quilting all the way across the top of the mat from one end to it's opposite side in order to add strength to the mat.

       Roll up the finished car mat with a tube of tiny ships and cars for play, using a wide satin ribbon to hold the package together. Give it to your favorite two-four year old!

       Barbie's little boy loves cars and trucks, so I decided to replace a missing trailer from a small replica of a John Deere big rig with a toy chest. Now our doll can pretend to haul the toys away after an exhausting fun filled day!

       In order to make this playscale toy box, you will need to first acquire the front end of a semi-trailer truck. If you have small children this will not be difficult. If not, take a trip to your local Goodwill or resale and you will surely find one of these in no time at all.

       Next, you will need to recycle a bit of plastic trash or a small box for the back end of the big rig toy chest. Choose something that looks in the correct proportion to your truck parts.

       Fortunately my semi-trailer truck has a hole between it's wheels where I can easily fit a small wire to attach the toy chest. You can see this hole through the plastic recycled box above.

        After covering my toy chest with masking tape, I simply poked a small, stiff wire through the bottom of the box and bent it into place so that the chest would attach to the back end of the truck. The bent end of the wire is held in place with glue and tape. 

       Then I lined the inside of the toy box with scrap fabric and white school glue. The out side of the truck trailer is wrapped with blue foam attached with hot glue and the bottom with black tape.

       I made a set of back wheels for the trailer by hot gluing two buttons to the ends of a wooden skewer through a small cardboard tube. Then I hot glued a metal snap to the white buttons to mimic tiny hubcaps.

You will need just the right broken toy for this project, but your version will look different from mine,  depending upon the toy car that you find.

       Cover the entire wagon attachment with masking tape before adding the paper mache pulp to it's outside walls. This protects the cardboard surface, strengthens it and makes it mostly water proof. Well you can't dump the toy in a tub, but, you will be able to wipe it down with a damp cloth if need be...
       I left the inside of the wagon and the bottom side of the wagon free of paper mache pulp and opted to cover these with a black duct tape instead.

Masking the cardboard wagon before applying paper mache pulp.

Covering the cardboard wagon with paper mache pulp.

Above is the finished car ball-pit for my playscale fashion doll's children. This looks great in their bedroom!

       Here is an easy way to decorate the walls of a car themed bedroom inside a doll's house.    
       Our small boy doll just loves cars and old hot rods! So I decided to make his bedroom shelves by gluing cardboard to the backside of the packaging our tiny cars came with. Then I attached a tiny hook to the doll house walls and a small wire to the backside of the shelving unit. Now Barbie's toddler can display his tiny car collection on the walls of the doll house.

       I recycled an old VCR rewinder shaped like a sports car for this next project. Although it was missing a few parts, I thought it would be a very nice car bed for a small doll. All it needed was a bit of cleaning, bedding and a place inside a doll's bedroom in order to serve a new purpose.

       Do not over stuff the mattress in this case, the heads bump up the padding and make sure that the cording is safely removed. 

       I sewed a simple blanket using a car novelty print for this little bed. Now the finished bed looks as though it were made for a child's room in a doll house. Little car beds are not as popular as they once were during the 1980s but the children still love to play pretend with miniature versions of these.

       I used a simple chalk transfer method in order to compose a service station/parking lot for any child sized, chalkboard table top. (See full sized table below.) You can print out a service station like mine from my car mat coloring page collection at Crayon Palace.
       You will need both regular white chalk and a liquid chalk pen to complete this craft project.
       If you do not have a chalkboard table it's easy to remedy this by spray painting the top of an old sofa table with chalkboard paint; but that project is for another post!

      Photographs of my friend's chalkboard table. I spruced it up a bit with a new coat of chalkboard paint and a chalk drawing for little cars. When his children tire of this; he can wash off the table top and start over.