A Name Worth Racing For: DIY Hot Wheels Name Display
I am on a mission to turn my toddler's room from his original nursey theme, to his "big boy" room. My toddler is obsessed with anything that moves, and Target had the cutest Hot Wheel themed bedroom decor-so of course I had to do with that! This is the first project of many to complete this vision, so be sure to check back often to see what else I have planned! Starting off though, I converted my son's letters that we used for his first theme to be able to fit this theme. If you want to see how I did it, keep reading!
First step was collecting the letters from my son's room. These letters were purchased on Etsy (will be linked below) and were a wave theme to go with his "One Piece" themed nursery. Since they are still in good shape and they weren't exactly "cheap", I was feeling torn about throwing them out. It felt wasteful, and I feel a certain amount of attachment to them. But as I was looking for items to fit in this new theme, I stumbled upon a couple name signs that incorporated cars and that seemed like the perfect thing to incorporate this old decor into his new theme! Since Hot Wheels branding using blue and orange, and these are already blue, I initially decided not to paint anything. So to get started I bought a 20 pack of cars (you could definitely find someone selling a bulk amount of Hot Wheels on Facebook marketplace or in the thriftstore). I laid out the cars on the letters in a pattern I felt looked okay. I kept all the cars going the same way, and tried to lay it out in a way that looked like they were all following that same curvy path.
Once everything was laid out, I used a hot glue gun to glue everything down. This was super easy and did not take long, I put the glue on the under carriage of each car-versus putting it on the wood. I felt like that helped secure the care a little more. When that was done, I went through and tried to wiggle each one making sure it felt solid on the letter. If there was too much wiggle I just gently lifted the looser part up and put some hot glue underneath. Doing this double check ensured that none of the cars are going to fall off once these are mounted to the wall.
Looking at all the cars glued on- I liked it, but I felt as if something was missing. To me, it still just looked like waves on the letters, that now happened to have cars attached to them. I decided that it needed the orange to pop. After debating between painting the darker blue waves or the light blue background, I went with the darker blue waves. It seemed like an easier task to do since the cars were already glued on (if I had known I was going to want to paint, I would have done the painting part before the glue part). I already had acrylic paint, so I went down into my craft supplies and found the red and yellow. I, of course, did not have just straight orange. After mixing for a while, I mixed what I believed to be a good color of orange and got to work on painting. This was not to paint around the cars, it did take a little over an hour though to do, as the acrylic paint did need quite a few coats to cover. I did about three coats back to back, and then let it dry for a bit before I did a final coat.
I think this project turned out very cute, and was a cheap and easy way to convert something that I already had and didn't necessarily want to get rid of, into something that fits the new theme of the room! If you are interested to see what else is in store for this room, or the final product, please follow along and continue to check back for more posts!
Links/Products
Name Wave Sign: Personalized Wave Name Sign: Layered Wooden Nursery Decor - Etsy
(I mixed the yellow and the red to create the orange in the image-I cannot say how the orange paint will turn out)
Any hot glue gun
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