Fisher Price Little Tykes Car DIY Makeover

I hinted at the "upgrade" I was giving Livi's Little Tykes Fisher Price car a few days ago in this post.  My little diva lives in pink and needed a cute ride for her trips up and down the sidewalk.  The hand me down car from big brother was looking a bit faded and worse for the wear and the spray paint for plastic was calling my name.

Here's my quick tutorial, a few fun pictures and my advice if you're going to tackle something like this!

1. Be sure to get painters tape, plenty of newspaper, spray paint intended specifically for plastics (Krylon Fusion for Plastics, Rustoleum and a few specialty brands at Michaels and Hobby Lobby all note clearly that they can be used on plastics).


2. Use the newspaper to tape off and cover the top portion of the car. Also tape off any accent pieces you want to stand out later. I taped off the "grill" the gas cap, the license plate, the tail lights and the bolts on the front.  I also taped the steering wheel and used plastic bags to cover the tires.


3. Turn the car over and spray the "under carriage". I used a silver for this.


4.  Turn the car back right side up and spray the body of the car. Use light even coats and just keep building up for even coverage. I did three light coats to get a solid robin's egg blue for my car.


5. I then lightly covered all but the interior seat area, and sprayed that silver for a little "leather look."  My girl's got style! :)


6. Once everything was dry, really, really dry...I took off key pieces of tape and switched the paper from covering up to covering down. If it's easier just yank the paper and recover the body of the car.  Spray the top and four sides of the top with your top color.


7. Once everything was dry and all the paper was off I could see yellow and red in the cracks. I used a fine paint brush and some craft paint to cover that.


8. Finally I pulled out some great sterling silver craft paint and painted "rims" inside the black tires, painted the front boltcovers, painted the gas cap and tail lights.  I used black craft paint to paint the front grill.


9. Last I did two light coats of Clear UV glossy protectant for plastics (Krylon) to seal it and make sure my hard work lasts!

It was a fun project and just looking at the car and my little girl having so much fun makes me smile.

Now for the pictures!

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My advice: 
Get in there and get your hands dirty! There is nothing like making something for your kids to make you feel like super mom! I turned an old TV stand into a play kitchen (tutorial coming soon), upgraded this car, who knows what's next! Be sure to buy real blue painters tape to be sure you don't pull your paint right off. Also try to tape paper to paper when wrapping your car!

Cost: $15

We had the car---$0

4 cans of spray paint (3 from Hobby Lobby on clearance, 1 regular price from Walmart) - $15

It's Primal for the Win

I've been looking for a way to maintain my weight loss so far, keep losing slowly, and generally steering my family to a healthier way of eating.  I looked a more "lifestyle" diets than I care to write about, but in my love of all things real and natural this family is heading down a Primal road! Primal and Paleo share some common ground and this caught my eye. I'm a visual learner! More to come on how and what we will be eating. I'm teaming Primal cooking up with kid friendly and freezer crockpot preperation for a whole new way to eat healthy for fast moving families!

I grabbed this infographic from Pinterest! Follow me there! Click the button over ------------->


Learn more about the Paleo Diet.

Clash of the Titans...Work versus Family

It's an eternal scale that every mom tries to balance. It's the sneaking, sinking belly feeling that hits when the euphoria fades.

At least for me the thought process went something like...

I'm having a baby...I'm Having A Baby... I'M HAVING A BABY (celebrating, a few tears, some quick leave it to beaver flashes) and then came the Oh I'm having a baby. What are all the men in my office going to say, am I going to lose my job, can I afford this, and on and on and on.  That part at least never faded for me.  I still struggle to balance work and family on a daily basis. I work early and late so I can avoid any mid day guilt when I break to do carpool.

Lately it's been even worse. We made a choice on our son's school. We avoided the neighborhood public school and looked for somewhere that would challenge him without bankrupting our budget. We thought we found it in a charter school. So I made the commitment. I drove my son 15 miles north each day, fought 30-55 minutes of traffic home each day. Started getting up at 5:30 am to ensure I'm not sacrificing any work and tried to convince myself that I was over reacting when everything started going wrong.

What is a Mom's Work Worth?

Saw this today on http://degreesearch.org/blog/ and just had to share! :) For all the mommies out there, this one's for you!
Via: DegreeSearch.org

What is the HCG Diet

I was pretty quiet when I decided to take on the HCG diet. I've tried everything and failed miserably at losing weight on every proven, recommended, and failsafe plan. I can't stand the look on peoples faces when they hear me say that and they assume I'm lying. I'm not. I did weight watchers and while it's an amazing program it didn't do jack for me. My husband lost 30 lbs but I didn't. I worked out every day for a year and a half in the gym, in the pool and with a trainer. I was the healthiest overweight person you might meet.

Then about three months ago my blood pressure started creeping up and I did something I swore I wouldn't do. I checked out the fad diets promising drastic changes. I love my children and am determined to see them through every major milestone life has to bring them. A friend had recently made some amazing progress on the HCG diet and what I read caught my eye.

If you are interested in it, definitely do your own research...there is no better way to learn, but for my friends and family wondering what the heck I've been up to, here's the nuts and bolts.

The HCG diet has been around since the 50s and is modeled after what our bodies do while pregnant. The science behind it is that when pregnant and producing HCG your body process fat differently than at any other time. Basically, to ensure baby always has what it needs the body uses both normal (healthy) and abnormal (not healthy, belly, hips, etc) fat for energy. A doctor back in the 50s realized that if non pregnant people took small quanties of HCG that made their bodies think they were pregnant, the hormonal response was to activate abnormal body fat into energy. The kicker is you have to eat 500-600 calories a day and no more, no fats whatsoever, no oils even in products like lotion/shampoo, etc. Your body HAS to go to the fat for energy and nothing you're giving it. If you do it right there is no hunger pangs, and after 3 days on a super clean lean meat, veggies and limited fruit diet there are no cravings either. I did a detox first for 2 weeks, the diet for 30 days and am doing 3 additional weeks of no sugars or starches at all. To be completely honest this is the easiest thing I have ever done, which is kind of scary. I eat healthy all the time and nothing works, so for me to eat to fullness (you really can on 500 cals which is weird too, plenty of meat and veggies), and lose was just crazy. During the 30 days there is no exercise because you aren't taking enough in to support it but I am adding in yoga/walking/jogging now that I've tripled my calories. What's weird is that even though it was only 21 lbs and I have a ton more to go, it was all in my belly and made a huge visual difference. The results are definitely keeping me motivated and I feel great. Once my three weeks of no sugars/no starches are up I start adding things back in slowly. Like a few starches/day at a time and see what my weight does. As long as it maintains or decreases I'm fine, if it goes up I know what triggered it and back off. This isn't a long term diet but definitely a gateway into better eating habits/lifestyle changes in general.

So there you have it, my take on a diet that is controversial in some corners but a winner in my book!

 

 

Crafty Goodness

At the end of the day, when the dust has settled, the house is quiet and I have a beverage of choice in hand, my mind generally turns to some crafty project or other that I have been contemplating. Tonight is no exception, but I thought long and hard about starting anything after the crazy day I had.

Most days I roll with the chaos. I think any parent worth their cheerios knows schedules are pipe dreams and that once the alarm buzzes anything goes. Today the alarm didn't buzz, kids wore the wrong clothes to the school with a uniform policy, other kids made it out of the house shoeless prompting a quick walmart run, I spent a gazillion dollars in tolls before 8am and went home twice before I got everyone dropped off. Of course after a morning like that I should have been rewarded with a random email from my boss telling me I'm so great I should take the day off, hit the spa and come back refreshed tomorrow, but instead the phone rang. As I was walking out of my Doctors appointment I got a call that my baby had spiked a fever and was being booted from daycare for 24 hours or more. And off we go again.  I won't beat a dead horse...the whole day went like that, you get the point.

Suffice it to say that by the time we left the pediatricians and waited through the carpool line, I was determined to rescue this day with something fun. So we hit Michaels and Hobby Lobby, grabbed some spray paint specially made for plastics (which happend to be on clearance...cha ching!) and headed home.  That was at 4pm. I didn't get the house settled down and get ready to paint until 9, but who's counting.

So project pictures coming tomorrow, but let me just say I'm taking the Fisher Price Little Tykes car to a whole new place for my little girl. I always feel bad when she gets a tired, faded hand me down that her big brother has outgrown. I don't want to be wasteful and really hate having two of something so spray paint and a crafty momma to the rescue.

I was inspired by a mini cooper and an awesome robin's egg blue color! Come back tomorrow, you won't want to miss this transformation.

My inspiration!

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HCG has treated me well

22 Pounds in 26 days!