My Beautiful Mess

Last week me and The Boys got creative! We actually did a version of this last summer, and they remembered it and asked to make one again. I first got the idea out of the Family Fun Magazine (it’s a good magazine - would recommend it for parents!). Basically, we made a cardboard track for little cars. If you have a large box that you need to get rid of, this would be perfect. We didn’t, so we went to Wal-Mart and just bought the biggest shipping box they had for under $5. Then you cut pieces of track like this…

While I cut out the track pieces, The Boys cut out these printable road signs that I found at this link. We had stop signs, speed limit signs, one way signs, and a really big “Danger” sign for the shark pit!

Our track was 4 inches wide. We made straight pieces, curves, curvy pieces, and then used the scrapes for whatever. The Boys are very creative so they made ramps and loop-de-loops and tunnels too. We then took the pieces to the garage to spray paint them - this was by far the hottest part of the project but worth it! Just make sure to move your cars out of the garage first!

Note the ponytail - standard operating hairdo when it is 100.

I also had been saving some household items like empty cans, bottles, and paper towel rolls that The Boys used to make their bridges and ramps over the shark pit! Coop is so creative, he even made stoplights with bendy straws!

I bought strips of adhesive velcro to put underneath the ends of the track pieces. This holds the track pieces together and yet it can be taken apart to be put up. It makes the track portable too - this is what they built when they went to work with me on Friday….

Working on this in bits and pieces took us two days. We spent very little money, forced ourselves to be creative, and stayed inside where it was cool! (Jesus I praise You for air-conditioning!) And we can reuse it over and over.

So be cool, be creative, have fun!