Sunday, October 3, 2010

Kid’s Parties: DIY Casey Jr. Train

Kid’s Parties: DIY Casey Jr. Train
One year my sister decided to throw a circus party for my nephew Casey, and she nominated me to build a Casey Jr. circus train for the kids to ride!  She knows I love a good project!  


My Dad and I started with an old chest of drawers he had salvaged from a garage sale, he’s great at finding things like that.  These were great, sturdy wooden boxes, and after we removed the hardware, they were the perfect beginning for a train! 


To make the animal cars, we cut pieces of pvc pipe about 2 feet high, maybe 30 inches depending on what size drawer you begin with.  We screwed those around three sides of the boxes.  Then I just used colored posterboard to add the banners along the top that I labeled wild animals, bears, elephants, lions, etc.  We painted the drawers in bright colors and added fake wheels.  The drawers themselves sat on casters so that we could actually pull the kids around!  We connected the cars with a sturdy rope by drilling holes near the bottom of the drawer sides and knotting the rope. 


The engine car had a few more modifications.  We screwed a big black plastic bucket to the front to look like the engine, and made a little cardboard cutout with windows to look like the engine room.  I didn’t get a great picture of this, it was like six years ago before I knew the importance of step by step photos.  I just added details with posterboard though to make it look as much like the Casey Jr. from Dumbo as I could!  It worked great and the kids loved riding around in the train!  Even my Mom took a spin =)   

No comments:

Post a Comment