Grampa's Workshop

Before we left Munich, MadHatter was reading one of her favorite books and found the plans to build a handlebar scooter.  She asked if I could take pictures of the project and bring them with us to Breckenridge so that she and Grampa could make one.  But of course...

We let the jetlag settle for a few days (power tools and jet lag do not mix) and then we made a list of materials, jumped in the car and headed to Lowes.  The girls were very enthusiastic about finding the right bolts and nuts for about 2 1/2 minutes before Grampa and I were left to search out the other pieces with the girls tagging along.  I get it, but I still made them participate as much as they could.  It wouldn't really be a team project if Grampa did it all.

We had more luck with them picking out their paint colors.  Stinkerbell decided almost instantly that she wanted to spraypaint hers.  I was a little dubious about the spraypaint, thinking that it would be messy and that a paintbrush would be easier for them to do themselves but I let her go ahead and get whatever she wanted (and I would be proven wrong later anyway).  MadHatter took a bit longer to make her final decision.  Quite a bit longer.  She was overwhelmed by the number of colors available for her to choose from, but somehow we got it narrowed down to two and had samples made of them (the sample sizes are more than enough for a project like this).

Once we got home, it was time for Grampa to do a little work on his own.  We decided that he would do the cutting of the pieces down to size because they were pretty small and thin and the girls had never used a table saw before.  So Grampa cut out all of the parts and then put the girls to work screwing them together, sanding them smooth and drilling the necessary holes with the press.  The girls were pros in no time!

Finally, it was time to paint!  This was the girls favorite part...

As I mentioned earlier, the spray paint turned out to be the easier of the two paint jobs.  First, it covered evenly in one coat (though we used 2), it dried quickly and was much faster.  MadHatter did a great job with her paint, it just took a few more coats and a bit longer.

After all of the pieces were dry we left them in Grampa's capable hands to assemble them in the right order.  They would have helped with this final bit too, but we had a day of shopping already planned down in Denver.  But imagine the smiles these girls had when they came home to these...

I think they enjoy them...