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Sometimes when I get bored I’ll hop in my car and head to Dollar General. About a ten minute drive, it’s the closest store I have to go to when I just need to get out of the house. And when you work from home, it’s easy to just stay put and after a week you realize you haven’t left the house once!
I’ll go and meander through the aisles and grab some shoes to add to my DIY stash or decide I really need a bag of gummy bears. But my favorite time to go is toward the end of the year when the holiday stuff starts to come out. From Halloween at Dollar General to Christmas I’ll go in and stand in the holiday aisle forever and try to figure out something I can craft for here on the ol’ blog.
They kind of know me there by now and it comes as no surprise when I walk up and buy them out of skeleton heads and Chrismtas lights. And on my last visit that’s exactly what I bought! But I also brought up a bunch of plastic food containers, spray paint and some Gorilla glue and I got the raised eyebrow and a “have fun with whatever you’re doing with this stuff today.”
I guess you can tell by now and all of the pics going on that I got after a homemade LEGO costume. With a few supplies from my local Dollar General I had this thing ready to wear in just a few hours (it took a while just because of dry time for glue and paint). In total the costume cost about $14, but that’s just because I also spent $4 on a new bottle of Gorilla glue! So for around 10 bucks you can make a box out of your garage into a fun, homemade LEGO costume for your little (or not so little) ones!
For this project you will need:
- Cardboard box – mine is 18x18x24
- Gorilla glue/hot glue
- X-acto knife
- Food storage bowls (comes with lids but we don’t need those)
- 2 cans white spray paint
- 2 cans color spray paint (DG has red, yellow and blue which all work GREAT for LEGOs!)
So here is my box and bag of DG goodies ready to get my DIY on. The box is new but came from a stash in my garage. If you don’t have one in your stash of “stuff” theycan be purchased for less than $2 at big box or chain home improvement stores.
Take your box and apply a generous amount of heavy duty glue to the top flaps. I used Gorilla glue but you can use whatever you have on hand. DON’T use hot glue. It just pops right off when met with anything difficult, like a head that can’t get through the hole first go.
Place the flaps down, turn the box over so that it remains shut and place something heavy inside. Allow to fully dry.
Using an X-acto knife or a box cutter cut out a hole for the head at the top…
…then cut holes for the arms on either side.
Decide which side of your box will be the front side and spcae out your food storage containers accordingly. Since we’re about to bust out the hot glue and things get stuck crazy fast, feel free to place the containers and then mark where they go by tracing the outer edge.
Glue your bowls on trying to keep the glue INSIDE of the bowl. I applied my hot glue inside of the circles and then set the bowls down but I got some funky glue areas that looked terrible. If I had to do over, I’d put the glue onto the bowl’s rim instead.
Hit it with some flat white spray paint to prime the surface. They’re only $1 a can so it’s the most economical way of priming the box. You really have to spray this sucker down. See where the color is splotchy? If you can get that a smooth white (because some of the cardboard will just soak that paint right up) you’ll have a better finished color. Anywhere where it’s fainter and you can still see the cardboard color through will be splotchy when you apply your $3 a can color paint meaning you’ll need to use more of the expensive stuff.
And remember those weird hot glue marks I was talking about? Bam! I wound up using some spackling out of the garage to smooth the edges of my bowls since I kind of screwed them up. Glue to the edges and this step will be completely unnecessary for you.
Hit it with your red, yellow or blue spray paint until well covered and allow to fully dry (and air out a bit as well). Pop it on over the head and you’re all set!
Special thanks to my special Momma for agreeing to my model in lieu of a child. Isn’t she fab?!
