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August 26, 2013

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Car

My kids love creating and tinkering. It makes me smile, since I never know what they will be building next. Some of their favorite projects include a fun Elastic-Band Launcher and a noisy Tin Can Howler. When I was contacted by Craft Project Ideas to review their Made By Me Wooden Cars, my kids were super excited! Just to be clear, we were given this product for an honest review and the best part is…they are also offering one of my lucky readers their own Wooden Car Kit. How cool it that! This might be the easiest competition to enter ever, check out the bottom of the post to find out how!

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Since I already mentioned that my kids love to build and tinker, it will come as no surprise that they had a blast building and painting their wooden cars. However, they also wanted to add their own twist to the already cool race cars. Balloon Cars have been something that we have been meaning to make for a long time. So we combined our super cool race cars with a little speed from a balloon, creating an awesome DIY race car that your kids will love.

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Before I get into building our cool balloon race cars, let me just say this kit was a breeze to put together. The directions were super simple to follow, and everything that you need is included. As a mom, I loved that each of the cars came in their own bag. No sorting parts or hours spent trying to figure what part goes where. Love that!

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Once they had most of the race cars assembled, they took the cars outside to do a quick sanding. I personally love the look natural, but the kids are all about the bright colors:)

Simple painting tip: For the photo we set the sides in place. However, we actually glued them on after the kids painted them. This made it easy for the kids to paint all the little crevices, especially behind the fenders.
DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Each car comes with 4 paint colors and 1 container of glue. (We only used a fraction of the paint that was in the little tubs) I love that only one coat of paint was needed to achieve the colors that the kids were looking for, especially once the kids added the detail stickers. These little race cars turned out to be a fun a simple project that is easy enough to complete in an afternoon.

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

How to Build a DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Car:

  • Build and Paint Wooded Car Kit
  • 1 Balloon
  • 4″ piece of 3/4″ plastic tubing ~ found at a hardware store
  • Tape ~ we used colorful electrical tape

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Slide the plastic tube into the balloon so that over half of the tubing is inside the balloon and secure with tape. The extra tube inside the balloon helps to stabilize the balloon, when the air is released. We found without it, the balloon flopped to one side and squeaked like crazy. Honestly my kids loved it, but I think I would have been driven batting in just a few moments. Once we added the extra length of tubing, no more squeaking and a happy mom:)

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Next tape the balloon and tubing to the back fenders of the race car. The kids wanted the make sure their custom paint job and stickers were not harmed when the tape was removed. Love it!
DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Use the plastic tube to blow up the balloon. It may take a bit of effort, so an adult may have to assist in blowing. The larger tube can make it a bit tricky to blow up. We tried using a drinking straw, but since our cars are wooden, the straw did not force out enough air at one time to make our race cars zoom. We found that the wider opening of the tube worked perfect.
DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Hold your finger over the end of the tube until you are ready to let your race car speed away. As you can tell, the kids loved it!
DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

Win Your Own Wooden Car Kit!

Winning your own Made by Me wooden Car Kit is super easy, and I know you want one! Keep reading to find out the rules, I promise entering this competition is super easy.

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Cars ~ simple homemade toy that is so fun!

To enter the competition…you need to leave a comment on this post by midnight (CST) on Monday September 2nd, 2013, telling us why you would like to win or what you would do with your car kit if you did win. I told you it was going to be easy and painless. I love reading your comments so this is really a bonus for me too:)

My kids will be helping me choose the best answer and that person will win their own Build and Play Kit. We love creativity, so get your thinking caps on and ask your kids to help come up with your best answer! Unfortunately the competition is only open to US residents that are 18 years or older, with a non PO box address (the kit will be shipped via Fed Ex which doesn’t ship to PO boxes).

Competition Rules

  • One entry per person ~ you must be over 18, with a United States non PO box address.
  • You have until midnight (CST) on Monday September 2nd, 2013 to leave your comment.
  • You must give your e-mail address along with your comment, so I can contact you.
  • You must tell me why you want to win this fun Build and Play Wooden Car Kit or what you would do with it. Remember creativity matters, so have fun with your answers!

I will send the winning e-mail address to Craft Project Ideas so that they can arrange the delivery of your Kit.

No sad faces if you don’t win. You can also purchase this wooden car kit at Walmart.

Posted in Kid Projects and tagged cars, Kid Projects, Painting, Transportation.

Welcome to Housing A Forest!
I would love for you to grab a cup of coffee and stay a while. You can read more about us or catch up on our favorite experiments, projects + art activities.

Related posts:

  1. Wind Powered Cars
  2. Racing Balloon Leprechauns
  3. Wooden Chest Transformation
  4. Drawing with Cars
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18 thoughts on “DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Car”

  1. Laurie on August 26, 2013 at 9:32 am said:

    Oh my goodness, I want one!! We SAY we get them for our kids, and sure, they’ll love them. But you know we secretly want these for us! I’m totally going to race one myself! 🙂

    Reply ↓
  2. Allison on August 26, 2013 at 11:14 am said:

    Ooh I love that you turned them into balloon rockets! How fun! If I win my older two boys would love to decorate their own cars. Then I bet they would want to race them on every surface in our house to see how they perform. 🙂

    Reply ↓
  3. Kimmie on August 26, 2013 at 2:53 pm said:

    Oh…I’d be overjoyed to win this. One of my sons loves wood projects and both love creating. Never mind painting is so fun.
    Honestly, my daughters certainly would enjoy this too.
    Thanks for sharing it…inspired!

    Kimmie
    mama to 8
    one homemade and 7 adopted

    Reply ↓
  4. Christine on August 26, 2013 at 3:17 pm said:

    My son loves anything with wheels and racing. He would love to race these with his brother to see who wins : )

    Reply ↓
  5. Dorothy S on August 26, 2013 at 6:18 pm said:

    Ooooh! I would use this in my after school program! I bet the kids would love dividing into teams, decorating their cars, and racing over and over again!

    Reply ↓
  6. Jennifer Fischer on August 26, 2013 at 11:32 pm said:

    I have been wanting to try to make a Balloon Powered car for awhile now, but I’ve never found the correct car vessel to be able to make it work. This car looks fabulous! I think the wooden cars wouldn’t final be our successful balloon car experience. Plus, Wild Thing (almost 4) loves building and painting so helping me put the cars together would be something that he would definitely love too, though ours would certainly not look quite as cool as yours! Still, if the car will go, my boys will be very happy. Thanks for sharing!

    Reply ↓
  7. Jackie on August 27, 2013 at 4:36 pm said:

    Making something from a kit would pass off a Cub Scout requirement for my son!

    Reply ↓
  8. Jamie Hiton on August 28, 2013 at 2:10 pm said:

    I just found your site today from Pintrest. We are having my daughters church class over and doing a science experiment play date! Thanks for the bubble blowing idea, I’m sure they will love it! We would love to win the cars! We love doing fun things that are a bit outside the box! Thanks for encouraging this kind of play!

    Reply ↓
  9. Jody Gavin on August 29, 2013 at 10:43 am said:

    I am answering on behalf of Benji who says, “I want one of these cars so I can race it. I only race big cars. If I had one I WOULD NOT take the stickers off.”

    Reply ↓
  10. Andrea Read on August 29, 2013 at 8:42 pm said:

    These are so AWESOME!! I have three young daughters, and I am currently homeschooling two of them. Not only would I love these to use for one of our lessons (oh, there are so many different concepts I could teach with these), but it would also give my husband a fun project to do with his girls. My husband is amazing with the girls, and thankfully my girls love climbing trees, fishing, hiking, and camping, but finding more projects for them to do together is important.

    Reply ↓
  11. Blayne on August 30, 2013 at 1:09 pm said:

    Baby K is OBSESSED with cars AND balloons!! I can just imagine him clapping his hands, shrieking, and chasing this car over and over again saying “Va Va Va!” (which is vroom vroom in baby language of course!) We completely ignore age requirements at our house, so I would let him paint one right now to play with. He would LOVE it! Then i would save the others for when he is a bit older so that he can enjoy them then also! Thanks for the opportunity to win! These are awesome! 🙂

    Reply ↓
  12. Anna@The Measured Mom on August 30, 2013 at 1:18 pm said:

    If I won the cars I would make my husband very happy by handing them off to him so he could do a fun project with our four kids :). This is just the sort of thing he loves to do with them.

    Reply ↓
  13. Tina on August 30, 2013 at 1:37 pm said:

    I would love these for my 3 oldest boys! They love building and crafting and these would be great for science experiments for my Daycare kids! Plus, I can see my husband and I racing them after the kids go to bed 🙂 Thanks for sharing!

    Reply ↓
  14. Christina on August 31, 2013 at 6:44 pm said:

    I would love this kit to build balloon race cars with my daughter! I’ve been trying to convince her that boys and girls can play with any type of toy. I think this project just might be the one that could break down a few gender stereotypes around here! 🙂

    Reply ↓
  15. SB on August 31, 2013 at 7:55 pm said:

    These look like a lot of fun. I am horrible about doing “kits” with my boys, but this looks simple enough that I would actually do it, and the set is just right for our family since we have 3 boys just the right age for this! 1 car each. 🙂

    Reply ↓
  16. Gabriel on February 22, 2014 at 1:59 am said:

    You should take part in a contest for one of the best blogs on the web.
    I am going to highly recommend this blog!

    Reply ↓
  17. Suzanna Medvedev on April 3, 2014 at 1:50 pm said:

    Just a question but how many meters does this balloon powered car go? I am currently in a Physics class and we have to make a balloon powered car. This car would work great for the experiment if of course it goes at least 5 meters. These wooden cars look amazing allowing children to have so much fun with them.

    Reply ↓
  18. Saani Bennetts on October 2, 2016 at 8:25 am said:

    Awesome idea. My kids will have heaps of fun with this. They love their wooden cars, but balloon powered would be very cool.

    Reply ↓

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