DIY Petrol and Car Wash Station

I have been collecting cupboard boxes of all sizes, with the intention of building a cupboard house for Jr. Then one day, I saw on one of my fav blog, a cupboard car! I'm so gonna make this for Jr, he loves cars! I had lots of ideas but procrastination sets in and instead of cupboard house or car, my study room was just filled with cupboard boxes. So much that a friend who visited commented that it's a garang guni (rag and bone man) room! 


This week, I am determined to start on this project, but what should we make? For the pass months, Jr was fascinated by the petrol station and especially so when papa brings him to the car wash. At home, Jr will ride his car to the refrigerator and pretend that it's a petrol pump and "Ben cho cho" (pump petrol). It took me some time to figure out what he was doing. Anyway, I decided he will get his very own petrol and car wash station! 

I did most of the sticking and tying. Jr helped by bringing the cutter, scissor, tapes or boxes. The cupboard rolls are meant to be petrol pump and water spray hose for car wash. It would be more convincing if they are painted black but mama is really not in the mood to do more cleaning up today. He'll just have to use a bit more imagination. 

He gets to colour his own sign board.

He was really serious about it and refuses to let me help. He also decided to have only black, brown and yellow on his station sign board. 

Does this look like a petrol pump to you? It can be held in place by the yellow handle of the box so in a way, it's like a petrol pump.. just need some imagination!

This is the back of the station. The flap at the back opens up and he keeps his toolbox in it. It's so much fun seeing him play now. He'll drive his car to the station, pump petrol then spend a loooonnnng time "Piiissst piiiissstt...." washing his car, then he'll tell me "Need to change tyre." Then proceed to take out his tool box, turn over his car and pretend to change the tyre. After that, he'll jump happily and says "Yeah! new tyre"! Absolute cuteness. He starts attending childcare center next week, and I know I'm gonna miss him.

Being a stay home mum and caring for a 2 year old 24/7, I have to keep thinking of ways to keep him occupied. The easiest way is of course to turn on the TV but I try to keep it to less than an hour a day. Mostly, we will read, play with his toys, do some colouring, or simple puzzles. On days when I'm feeling more adventurous (eg, all household chores done), we will have fun with play dough or even painting. I try to avoid activities that will mess up the house. Still can't forget the time when I let him scoop rice grains from a bowl to another, the intention was to let him develop his fine motor skill but ended up, it was more of a test on my patience. I ended up having to vacuum the rice grains from all over the kitchen.

Today, I was not only feeling adventurous, I was downright audacious! I decided that we will make a double-decker bus from a cereal box! Here's how to do it. 

1) Stuff crushed newspaper into a cereal box then wrap it with white paper. 

2) Get Jr to paint it red. He used a roller so it's faster.

We took quite some time to paint the whole box as he didn't want my help and insisted on doing all the painting.

3) Use a cup to trace out 4 circles on a piece of cupboard. I held down the cup while Jr traced with a pencil. Paint or colour the circles black as these will be the wheels.

4) Cut out the circles and apply glue on the other side and sticks these to the painted cereal box.

5) Cut out rectangles and circles from a piece of aluminum foil and stick them onto the bus as windows and wheel rims. Cut out 2 rectangular pieces of cupboard and stick them to the side as doors. Draw details using black marker.

Tadah! You made a double decker bus!

I asked Jr, what number he likes and he said EIGHT!

That's mama and Jr. I asked Jr, "where is papa?" He answered, "Driving"! But I doubt he meant papa is driving the bus. I think he meant papa drives the family car to work while mama and Jr takes the bus to go out.

This project took the whole day to complete. We did the painting in the morning then let the paint dry. We completed the rest of the project after lunch and Jr's noon nap. What a busy day.