The wheels on the bus go round and round–or wherever you want them to go with this DIY kids wood bus art project. With the free patterns below, this 3D bus wall decor is easy to create. It’s perfect for a kids room or baby room with a travel or transportation theme.
Pair it with any of these other wood transportation vehicles to make a set. Then get ready for your next adventure!
supplies
- bus patterns DOWNLOAD HERE
- MDF (medium density fiberboard) or wood in 3/4 inch and 1/4 inch thicknesses
- small 1 inch birch circles
- 2 birch wood toy wheels ( 2 1/2 inch diameter)
- small wood dowel cap (for tail light)
- 3/4 inch birch wood furniture button (for the headlight)
- square wood dowel (3/4 inch diameter) for the road
- strong adhesive like Gorilla Clear Epoxy
- jigsaw or band saw
- sandpaper
- paint
- 14 inch x 14 inch square wood painting panel
step 1: download & cut out patterns
Download the bus patterns and print them out. Make sure your printer is set to print at 100% scale so that the patterns print out at the correct size.
After printing, use scissors to cut out the pieces. Tape the two cloud pattern sections together to make one pattern piece. Also join the two bus pattern sections (right side and left side) together to make one bus pattern piece before cutting from wood.
step 2: cut from wood
Use a jigsaw or band saw to cut the bus from 3/4 inch thick MDF (medium density fiberboard) or wood. Cut the clouds and windows from 1/4 inch thick MDF or wood.
For the windows, it’s easier to start with a 2 inch x 8 inch rectangular piece of wood and then mark off the division lines with a pencil.
Cut on the lines and then you’ve got bus windows.
You should now have all the pieces shown in the photo below. Along with the pieces cut from wood, you will need a small dowel cap (for the tail light), a furniture button (for the headlight), 2 birch wheels, and 2 birch circles. To make the road, a square wood dowel works really well. You can find square dowels in home improvement stores like Home Depot in the aisle with wood trim and molding. You can also find them at craft stores in the wood crafting section.
step 3: make the wheels
To make the bus wheels, use wood glue or Gorilla epoxy to attach a 1 inch birch wood circle inside each of the birch wood wheels.
step 4: paint
Next, paint the bus in your favorite color.
For best results, paint the wood pieces with a good quality water-based primer like Zinsser Bullseye before painting with color. If you want to skip the primer step to save time, you can use a paint product that already has primer mixed into the formula.
I used Behr Premium Plus 8 ounce paint samples for the bus below. The Behr colors combine paint and primer together, so you can omit using a separate primer product and fast forward straight to adding color, which is the fun part! I used two coats of blue (Behr Treasure Map S500-5) for the bus, and dark gray (Behr Graphic Charcoal N500-6) for the wheels.
For a smooth finish, sand between paint coats with a 320 grit sandpaper.
Now for a stripe on the bus.
step 5: painting a stripe
Here’s my secret to getting a clean stripe with no fuzzy or bleeding edges.
Start with a good quality tape to mask off where the stripe will go. I used Scotch Blue painter’s tape for sensitive surfaces. It has an orange label and works really well on surfaces that have been freshly painted.
The secret to getting a clean edge, though, is not just in a good brand of tape. The secret is in sealing the tape. Even the best edge lock tapes will occasionally have a weak spot where paint will leak under, causing you to end up with a messy line.
Here’s how to prevent that from happening…
Use a small brush to paint over the tape edges using the same color that you used to paint the bus. So in my case, I painted over the inside tape edges with another coat of blue paint –Behr Treasure Map.
Now if any of that paint color happens to leak under the tape, it’s going to be the exact same color as the bus. Undetectable. As soon as the paint dries, it will make an impenetrable seal, so that the next color that gets painted on will not be able to bleed under the tape.
When that first color is dry, choose a second contrasting paint color–the actual paint color that you want the stripe to be. Paint between the tape lines with the second color and let it dry. Use multiple coats if needed to get a good solid stripe. I used Behr Dark Navy.
When the color dries, pull off the tape and voila! There you have it. A perfectly straight clean edged stripe with no bleeding underneath.
The first color serves the purpose of sealing the tape to prevent bleeding. The second color gives you a perfect stripe.
I also get better, cleaner results when I use matte or flat paint rather than satin or gloss.
step 6: begin assembly
Use a strong adhesive to glue the windows, headlight and tail light to the bus body. I used Gorilla clear epoxy for this step. It is super strong and it dries in 5 minutes.
It helps to place a straight edge under the windows to keep those little rectangles lined up and even while you’re gluing them down.
step 7: put it all together
Now it’s time to begin assembling the pieces onto a background. For the square background base of this wall art project, I used a 14 inch square birch wood panel, painted it pale blue, and then glued the bus, wheels, road, and clouds to it with more Gorilla clear epoxy.
Birch wood panels are great because they’re lightweight, and they have a nice depth that adds to the 3D look of the art. They are also cradled (or open in the back like a tray) so it’s easy to slip the back right over just a nail in the wall for easy hanging.
As an alternative to using a wood panel for the back of your bus wall art, you can make your own square background by using leftover wood or MDF from making the bus. Then all you need is a couple of sawtooth hangers or D rings added to the top back corners for hanging on the wall.
Tada! Bus wall art – ready to go!
need a set?
Combine your bus wall art with these other DIY transportation wall art projects to make a custom set of vehicles.
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