Themed family fun - Aeroplane week

Welcome to Aeroplane week!

This week we decided to take on a rather ambitious project for us considering I had been very un-organised busy and left it all to the last minute! That is why this post is late so I send my apologies for my lateness!

We decided to make an aeroplane costume and although I did find this to be quite tricky, Faith really enjoyed making it and she is also really enjoying wearing it too and pretending that she is flying a plane, so it was worth the effort.

If you would like to make one with your children we used;

* A big cardboard box.

* Acrylic paints and brushes.

* A sharp knife - we used a kitchen knife as it was all I had to hand but a proper stanley or crafting knife would be best!

* Cling film and tin foil.

* Scissors.

* Duct tape or other strong tape.

* A split pin.

* 4 long thin sticks. I think that I brought mine from the gardening department last year and I used them for roasting marshmallows on!

First we cut a hole in the bottom of the box so that when turned upside down your child's head would fit through.

Next we cut off the flaps and put them to one side for later. We then cut wing shaped flaps to make the wings and also so that your child's arms can go through them.

We then cut a triangle flap from the front of the box and then using the longest flaps of card from earlier we taped it all together to make the front of the plane. (I am sorry if I am not making too much sense but it is very hard to explain!)

Next we moved onto the window. For this we used one of the small flaps from earlier and cut a window hole from the inside so that we had a card frame. We then taped cling film over the frame to look like a glass window. 

Using the last flap we cut out two figure of eight shapes to make the propeller and a semi circle for the planes tail.

We then tapes all of the bits onto the plane apart from the propeller blades. My husband was a brilliant help doing this bit and he made little cardboard supports with scrapes of card.

Once the plane is assembled you can then paint it. We painted the whole plane white to start with and the reason we used acrylic paints was because normal paint would not cover the tape. It is also good as it gives a more metal like finish.

Once the plane was completely dry we then painted two stripes round the plane, but you could do any design you like.

We then cut two small parts from the ends of two of the sticks and used them to help support the window and keep it up. Then we tapes the sticks under the wings, two on each wing, to keep the wings out.

Finally we covered the cardboard blades in tin foil and then secured them to the front of the plane using a split pin.

If you have been inspired by this weeks theme then I would love for you to link up at the bottom of this post.

For more information on the themed family fun linky, take a look at the page at the top of my blog.

Don't forget to check back on Monday to see the next theme!