DIY Cranky the Crane

Just wanted to share a Thomas the Train Party for all you Thomas fans out there:) I don't know about you but just about every 3 year old boy I know loves Thomas! So needless to say when my sons third birthday came creeping up we knew Thomas would be the theme. Now my son not only loves Thomas but his favorite character on the show is Cranky. For those of you who are not up to date on your Thomas characters Cranky is a large, green, grumpy crane. I knew I had to recreate a large Cranky for my sons party and lucky for you I'm going to share the super top secret really easy tutorial. Here is a list of what you will need.

1. Boxes (ours were from Home Depot) you need them in 2 sizes. 3 large and 2 small.
2. Craft paint in an army green color. Ours was from Michael's not sure what the name was sorry. Remember to use what you have on hand. It's really easy to mix paint to get the color you want. You also need, black and grey.
3. Painters Tape
4. Two-Sided Tape (the good stuff)
5. Paint brushes-1 thick and 1 really thin (we used the thin one from my sons crayola art set:)
6. A good friend or cousin to help
7. Some good drinks to bribe them with:)

First things first...get one of your large boxes and tape the box shut with painters tape. I used painters tape because you can actually paint on top of it. It holds the paint really well as opposed to packing tape where the paint would just wipe off. Repeat this step with all of your boxes. Once all boxes are taped off use your green paint and give the boxes a few coats. We were going for an industrial look so it didn't bother me that the Home Depot wording on the boxes was showing through. But if you are like Kali and it will make you all crazy and all OCD you could always add brown craft paper like I did when making the Rubix Cubes here. Once you cover all boxes let the paint dry. We gave it about 1/2 hour because I'm  impatient like that. So now you will have 5 green hopefully dry boxes. Now take your black craft paint and your 5 boxes and have your super helper friend (hopefully a good free hand painter like mine) paint a large X on all four sides of the  boxes leaving 1 side of one of the large boxes without an X. Once all the X's have been painted set them aside and grab the large box with no X and paint a large grey rectangle leaving about a 1" green border all the way around. Once the grey rectangle is dry you can start working on the face. I can't take credit for this, it was all Kali:) she pulled up an image of Cranky from Google and free handed his face onto the box. Now take your two sided tape and use it to tape the middle of the boxes to make the crane stick together. That's it! Now you should have yourself one large Crane for an awesome Thomas Party.
 *Side Note- The day of the party was really windy so we ended up cutting a long slit in the bottom box and slipping a 20lb round weight in there. It held together perfect:) Here are some pics for the party! Have fun creating your own! XOXO~Jenn