Cardboard Car

Sorry everyone, for the long absence. 

We've been busy the past two weeks - first, we all had colds, 

and then my parents came, all the way from Singapore! 

They'll be here five weeks, which is absolutely lovely. 

So in recent days we were occupied with recovering and 

getting the house ready (i.e. repeatedly cleaning the same rooms 

of the same toys which seemed to magically reappear 

at the same places five minutes after putting them away).  

I've been making stuff - sewing mostly, but haven't had the time 

to put them in pictures. I even have a couple of tutorials ready to go, 

except I haven't gotten round to learning how to scan patterns 

into the new computer with the relatively new scanner 

(new to me, anyway). So once I've figured all that out,

 I'll post the tutorials. 

In the meantime, here's what we made today - 

a cardboard car for the kids. Usually when I make something, 

the ideas and plans churn in my head for a few days before 

I am ready to execute them. But yesterday, Emily decided 

she needed a cardboard car. And fast. Now, in fact. 

Managed to hold her off with the (true) excuse that we didn't 

have any boxes. But she wouldn't be put off, and the longer she waited, 

the more complicated and fancy her "car" idea became - first it was 

a car for her dolls, then it was a car for her and Jenna, then a car 

for her and Jenna and their dolls with seat belts. Then it was 

a carriage with a roof. Then a sort of utility vehicle. 

Finally it was bedtime (phew).

And this morning she asked for the car again. And I thought 

we'd better make it before she got enough ideas to ask for an 

amphibious-bus-cum-sedan-chair-cum-flying-saucer. So we set about 

making it, with no plans in my head except that it needed to have 

some nice wheels. Somehow found two diaper boxes (visible 

in the photo) and used them inside-out. Gives the kids a surface 

to decorate and avoids telling the whole world which stores 

we shop at for necessities. 

It essentially has two small boxes for bench seats, a smaller box 

for the engine/dashboard, two paper plates glued together 

for a steering wheel, a wooden disposable chopstick for the 

steering column, another box in back for a trunk/boot, and paper 

shapes for the headlamps, taillights and wheels/hubcaps. 

Grandma and I put it together (hooray for help!)

Emily drew in windows on the sides and decorated the trunk.

I realize it is about the boxiest car I've ever seen, but at least 

it's generic in shape. This way, with some imagination, it can 

be a fire truck, bobsled, canoe, race car, convertible, non-waterproof 

submarine, amphibious boat and bus! Perhaps even a princess 

carriage, if we decided it came from a zucchini rather than a pumpkin.