Denim Roads for Toy Cars

I found this idea a while ago on Pinterest and was so excited to have an excuse to make it this week: Roads for little toy cars made out of old pair of recycled jeans!! These were fun to make, they're fun to play with, and they can travel easily for playtime when you're not at home. Plus they are perfect to create a little town or neighborhood with your Paper Bag Village from my previous post!  Here's how to make this easy new toy:

First find an old (or cheap) pair of jeans you can cut up. The bigger the better so you can make more roads! I stole a pair of my husband's beat-up jeans from the bottom of his closet with big holes in the knees. He probably didn't even notice... unless he reads my blog! hehe. Cut out large sections of denim, cutting along the seams so you get nice flat pieces to work with.  Draw your roads on the back side so you know where to cut. Mine are about 4 inches wide, or enough for two Matchbox-size cars to drive side-by-side. Regular ballpoint pen worked fine for this.Cut them out.

 I was able to make a total of 24 pieces out of that one pair of jeans! This included: (2) 4-way intersections,  (1) 3-way intersection, (6) curves, (7) long stretches, (6) short stretches, and (2) parking lots with three spaces each.

Now you can draw or paint lines down your roads. I used puffy paint pens. (fun!) I made dashed lines, wrote "Stop" at all my intersections and "Parking" with spaces on my little parking lots. While I did this part, Molly (5) got to use the puffy paint pens to decorate the pocket! Later, you can use the pocket to store all your streets in, or store cars...or any little thing that your child chooses like Molly did. (Hmm... maybe we'll make a purse out of it... to be continued!!)

 

It is easy to set up these roads and they don't have to match up perfectly. If you want them to stay in place better on your carpet, you can add the rough side of Velcro to the bottoms. You can also add Fray Check to the edges or make a zig zag stitch along the edges to keep them from fraying. So far I haven't done any of those extras because they're working great for us just plain and simple! I always love the easy way. :O)