DIY Wood Car Wall Art for Kids Rooms

Vrooooom! This cute little 3D red wood car is a fast one day project. Use the free patterns below along with easy to find wood and supplies to cut and assemble it in no time. It’s perfect for a nursery with a car theme, and it can be combined with these other vehicle projects (helicopter, bus, and jet) to make a complete set of 3D transportation wood wall art for a kids room.

While the instructions do require some cutting with a saw, no worries if you don’t own one. You can often find a local business with a CNC router who will be happy to cut the pieces for you (and they typically have a supply of wood already on hand which makes the process even easier).

supplies

• car patterns DOWNLOAD HERE
• MDF (medium density fiberboard) or wood (1/4 inch thick and 3/4 inch thick)
• small 1 inch birch wood circles
• 2 birch wood toy wheels (2 1/2 inch diameter)
• small wood dowel cap (for a tail light)
• 3/4 inch birch wood furniture button (for headlight)
• jigsaw or bandsaw
• strong adhesive like Gorilla clear epoxy
• sandpaper
• paint
• 14 inch x 14 inch square birch wood panel

step 1: download patterns

Download car 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.

Cut out the pieces, and tape the two cloud pattern sections together to make one pattern piece. Join the left and right side of the car pattern together to make one piece as well.

step 2: cut

Cut the car from 3/4 inch thick MDF (medium density fiberboard) or wood. Cut the car windows and cloud from 1/4 inch thick MDF or wood.

I used MDF for this project simply because it’s smooth, doesn’t splinter, and requires less sanding on the cut edges. It’s also fairly inexpensive.

After cutting, use sandpaper to smooth away any rough spots.

Your set of project pieces should now look like the ones in the photo below. Along with the parts that you cut with the saw, you’ll need these purchased ones: a small dowel cap (for the tail light), a furniture button (for the headlight), 2 birch wheels, and 2 small birch wood circles. To make a road under the car, a square wood dowel works well. You can find square dowels at a home improvement store like Home Depot in the section where trim and molding are located.

step 3: assemble wheels

To make the car wheels, use wood glue to attach the small birch wood circles inside the birch wood wheels.

step 4: paint

Paint the car, clouds, and other pieces with your favorite colors. It works best to coat the wood pieces with a water-based primer before painting unless you are using a brand of paint that combines primer & paint together in the same container, such as Home Depot’s Behr brand.

I used small 8 ounce Behr Premium Plus paint samples in a matte finish for painting the car below. For the car body, I used a classic red (Behr Timeless Ruby HDC_CL_01). For the tires and road, I used Behr Graphic Charcoal (N500-6).

Apply a couple of coats of paint to get good coverage, sanding in between coats with a 220 or 320 grit sandpaper. Sanding after each paint layer will give you a smoother finish.

step 5: begin assembly

Now it’s time to begin putting all the pieces together. Use a strong glue to adhere the windows, headlight and tail light to the car body. Gorilla Clear Epoxy works really well. It’s strong, dries clear, and sets in 5 minutes.

Once the windows and lights are set, glue all of the remaining pieces to a wood panel to complete the wall art.

I used a 14 inch x 14 inch square American Easel birch wood painting panel as my background, and painted it pale blue before gluing the clouds, road, car and wheels.

The advantage of using a wood panel is that it has a thickness of close to 2 inches, which enhances the 3D look of the art. Panels are also lightweight, and they have a cradled (or inset) back. That open back means you don’t need to attach any sawtooth hangers or D rings to the back of the art for hanging. The top of the frame back can be slipped right over a couple of nails in the wall.

You can find painting panels many places but I love American Easel birch panels because the quality is top notch.

Before discovering this brand, I used to purchase student grade wood panels, just because they were a couple of dollars cheaper. The quality of the student grade, though, ranged from just okay to pretty terrible. I spent so much time, energy and money trying to repair knot holes and dents in those cheap wood panels that I realized I would have been much better off buying the nicer ones to begin with.

As an alternative to purchasing a wood painting panel, you can also simply cut a 14 inch square from MDF or plywood (leftover from the car) and use that as a background base.

Then your 3D DIY little red car is all set and ready to go!

make a set of transportation wall art

More is more. Check out the step by step instructions for making these other DIY transportation wood wall art vehicles. Combine them with the 3D DIY little red car wall art to make a fun set of 4.

Helicopter — Find the instructions and patterns HERE

Bus — Find the instructions and patterns HERE

Airplane — Find the instructions and patterns HERE

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