A month ago, I decided to buy all of my Christmas gifts from thrift stores and upcycle them. Not everything turned out as I expected.
But a few turned out well. Like this one.
My nephew received an upcycled PowerWheels car. These sell for $250 or more, but I saw one at Goodwill for $5. I was willing to bet on the fact that it was just a dead-battery-situation. One $25 battery later, we were in business. I had to make the car cooler, though. I just wasn’t having this:
I used isopropyl alcohol and a rag to rub off the stickers that did not peel of cleanly. Then I use the alcohol and rag again to go over the entire car, inside and out. I wanted all the gunk and dust gone. I used several types of cleaners before I discovered alcohol to be the best. If you are planning to paint a plastic toy, a 17 cent bottle of alcohol is your friend.
Next, I used painter’s tape, paper, and plastic bags to prepare for spray paint. Without telling him I was making something, I showed my nephew a few race cars on the Internet, just to see what colors he liked. He liked anything with flames. Who doesn’t? I had predicted that he would prefer classic red/yellow flames on black, but he oohed and aahed when he saw one car with silver flames on black. I have to say, that kid has taste. It worked out well for me because the car was already silver.
If my nephew ever asks me if I love him, I am going to show him this picture and say, “Do you see all that painter’s tape? Do you?”
I took off the hood so that I could put a flame detail on it. I googled until I found a pattern for car flames. I looked at it and free-handed flames on Contact paper. It hardly took any, so don’t buy a whole roll if you don’t already have scraps of it on hand. Use tape instead.
I chose black Valspar plastic paint, which is perfect in application. I cannot recommend it enough. It is the best spray paint I have ever used. You can see the hood of the car by the left front tire. I made a big mistake at this point that I do not want you to make! I taped the front of the windshield, but not the back! Duh! I ended up accidentally painting the back of the windshield black, too. Which defeated the purpose of a windshield, and it took forever to scrape the paint off. Tape the back of your windshield!
I think it turned out great! One red hood clip was missing when I bought it, but who cares? I cannot even tell you how much my nephew loved his surprise. He thought it was so cool. Saving money wasn’t the main reason I did this, by the way.
It was because I wanted to make him something that no one else had.
For that license plate, I just googled “blank Texas license plates” and found this one. I typed his name in a font I thought looked like the real license plates, printed it on a large shipping label, and stuck it on the car. Then, I sprayed over it with a couple coats of clear polyurethane.
If you have been charmed by all of the Pinterest photos of upcycled plastic toys out there, do not be afraid to try your own. I had never done this before, but I think it was worth the effort and minimal investment.
Have fun with your project!