Pinewood Derby Award and a tutorial

I volunteer in our church Cub Scout Program.  For our Pinewood Derby I volunteered to make the prizes for the boys.  Our committee chair has seen this on Pinterest and we thought it would be great to make for our boys.  I looked for a tutorial after I made it and found one similar but I thought since I document things anyway that I would try and make a mini tutorial for how to make it.

 

Here is one side.

 

 

 

All twelve together with the  1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners in the front.

 

What you will need:

 

• 2x4
• Cars (I bought mine 3 for $1 at Dollar Tree.)
• Spray paint - Blue and Gold
• E6000 or a super strong glue
• Vinyl - I used white and gold

HOW TO:

Cut 2x4 at an angle.  My first idea was to just cut a piece about 3 1/2 inches and then cut it in 1/2 on the diagonal, of course when you let the engineer/woodworker do it, he has his own idea and thinks that that would be to small.  So he cut the diagonal the same, but added about 2 inches to the bottom.  So if you look at it on the side.  It is 5 1/2 inches to the top of the piece of wood and where the slope comes down it is 2 inches.  Does that make any sense?  Just wing it, it will look okay how ever you do it.

 

Next you need to paint the pieces.  We had a nice warm day and so I got to spraying the blocks.

 



 

I used this paint (leftover from my Race car Birthday Party.) It was shiny and perfect for the job.

 

 

Then I painted the cars with Gold Metallic spray paint.

 

It took a couple extra sprays to get all of the nooks and crannies of the cars, so the color wouldn't shine through.

 Here is the paint I used for this part.

Then the gluing began.  You could use any super strong glue.  I used something like E6000.  We had to adapt the cars a little bit by adding a very thin piece of wood underneath and between the wheels so the car would stick.  I didn't get a picture of that part.  We just painted the wood so you wouldn't be able to see it.

 

Next I got out my Silhouette and cut the vinyl for the sides.  I used the font Tan Patty, it looked a lot like the font used on the Official Site from the Boy Scouts of America for Pinewood Derby.

One side had the pack number on it.

 

The other side had Pinewood Derby and the year on it.

We decided to have a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winner and so I tried for the first time to layer fonts.  It isn't all that hard when you have something small like this.  But I am sure it would take a little bit more work to do something larger.  Here is a link to the video I used to help me figure out how to LAYER.

Turned out pretty good for my first try.  I am also adding a link to my Pinterest board for my Silhouette helps.  I find sometimes if I have only done something once I can't remember how to do it the next time and so I use Pinterest as my brain.  Hope you enjoy.

Vinyl and Easter Eggs

Do you wonder where I am going with this?  As we were dyeing our eggs last weekend, I decided that I had some leftover shapes from previous vinyl projects and thought I might try using the vinyl on the eggs, then dye them and then peel off the vinyl.  It worked perfect.

Next year I think I will cut out more shapes and maybe try some stripes or something.  The kids thought it was awesome.  The first two I just put the shape on the white egg, but the last one I colored the egg, let it dry, and then put the vinyl on and dipped it in the next color.  I was the cool mom and that point.  (Good thing we cooked a couple dozen eggs or we wouldn't have so many cool designs.)

If you plan on doing this, to get a really clean shape you need to make sure the egg is dry and that you have rubbed it on pretty good.  Any place you don't rub it on well enough will leak the dye in.  You can see it on the purple one.  I probably didn't let it dry long enough.  I was too excited.  Another thing is that the smaller the shape the better it holds on and doesn't have to curve over the egg.  So use smaller shapes like the star and the heart in the middle. 

Here is a snowflake that I found and put on.  It actually worked better then I thought.  If we hadn't been almost done, I would have whipped out my Silhouette and made some cool designs.  Next year we will have the coolest eggs on the block.  I almost can't wait, except that I don't want to do winter over, I am so ready for spring!!