Pimp My (Cozy Coupe) Rides

Ooooh, that's right.  I have a blog.  It's what that little corner of my head is always nagging me about, like a term paper that is constantly overdue.  Need to blog this... I should really blog that.  But with two little ones I can barely keep up with the basics around here.  And by basics, I mean spray painting anything that isn't nailed down and eating a bunch of sweets.  Spray painting is my new love.  The moment I spray painted my first piece of furniture for our music studio I was hooked.  It was a little vintage cabinet I found for $10 at the Goodwill that I painted espresso and replaced the knobs with funky colorful ones from Anthropologie. It turned out so great and was SO easy that I was ready to paint the rest of my life in very bright colors.  I think I might have been a tagger in a past life.  It's very relaxing for me, apart from those ghastly fumes.  I'm big on instant gratification and that is just what this is.  You press one little button and see an immediate improvement.  Why can't housework be like that?

 

When my friend Dawn told me about people renovating their ugly orange Little Tikes cozy coupe cars, I thought that was crazy.  Why would anyone spend any amount of time dolling up a piece of junk?  They are always faded and peeling and just plain trashy.  I figured they are just a part of having kids and like most other toddler toys, I can't wait until they are outgrown and donated.  I went on Pinterest to see some examples and found the cutest little cars ever.  That was it.  I had to pimp out our cozy coupes.  I bought the really faded one on the left at a garage sale for $1.  One. Dollar.

 

 

I thought this cozy coupe car wash was pretty precious.

 

I wish I could say that this project was as easy as all of the other spray paint experiences I've had, but this little police car was a serious pain.  For the life of me I could not figure out how to take the door off so I had to carefully tape around it and spray and then respray and then touch up and retouch. And since there's no real door on the other side, I had to hand paint it.  With a paint brush.  Spraying paint onto a paint brush and painting it on.  It took, oh...say... 150 coats (give or take) to get it bright white against the black with a nice even coat.  It was 95* that afternoon and I kind of wished someone would just show up with a giant frying pan and put me out of my misery.  But oh, look at that siren!  It lights up and blares the loudest sound known to man when you press the button.  Luckily a few layers of black duct tape over the speaker took care of that.  I found Transformers police decals that were perfect for the doors, since Jude loves both of those things right now.  And obviously, you can't have a new police car without a police hat & badge to make it official.  I wonder if they sell tiny traffic ticket booklets on eBay?

      

 

 

 

 

 

The gypsy caravan coupe was pure joy to make.  It only took me about an hour since I didn't have to hand paint anything.  My favorite part was hot gluing the fringe along the roof, so much fun.  Raya loves her "princess car" and thinks the fringe is hilarious.  I wonder if they sell mini crystal balls and toddler tarot cards on eBay? 

 

 

 

♥