Let’s Take A Drive Bridge

This blog post is a little bit different from the others, this is our first blog as a part of Kids Craft Blogger Challenge through MomTrusted / Early Teacher. Check out Early Teacher when you get a chance.

This month we received around 25-30 big and medium sized popsicle sticks to work with.  What do you do as a craft with this tool when you have a son that has TONS of cars? You build a bridge for them to take a drive on. This will even work for girls that have lots of dolls that like to take walks in the park too.

What you need:

• Popsicle sticks– Medium to Large at least 50.  This really depends on how big you want your bridge. We made it wide enough for two cars to pass, but if you use smaller sticks your bridge will be more narrow.   

                                        

• Wood Glue – this process will take several days, you can use hot glue if you want it done faster.

• Shallow pan– to soak your wood in to be able to bend it.
• Clothespins- to piece your wood together after it is glued.
• Xacto knife– to cut any sticks down to size.

Step 1:  Lay out your popsicle sticks into a design you want to make. This is important to know what plan to follow and where to make adjustments.

Step 2:  Start by gluing your sides together. Your sticks that will be vertical you will want to double up. Place your cross beams in the middle. Makes it a little bit more sturdy and looks better too. You can see below how I used the clothes pins. These are small clothespins so I have more room to work with.

After this step I let it dry overnight.

Step 3: Start building your support beams on the bottom for the actual bridge portion.  You want to make a square with the ends sticking out so they can be mounted on the sides of the bridge. Also put one more stick vertical in the beam. You will make 2 of these.

Once the glue is dry you can attach it to the sides of the bridge.

Step 4: Soak two sticks in water until they can be easily bent.  This will be the middle arch or the bridge to connect either side of the bridge.

This picture shows the bridge upside down to show how I connected the bent sticks.

Step 5: Start laying your planks with the smaller sticks.  This works best with they are vertical. 

Step 6: Add your center planks.  We used the larger sticks to go horizontally in the center and cut them to size using an xacto knife.

Step 7: Let your child paint or decorate however they want to make the bridge one of a kind.  We have yet to do this step yet, but once Easter is over and things calm down I am sure Jackson will love to decorate it. 

Step 8: Enjoy!!! 

This project took about 3 days to finish. I was able to take my time instead of rushing things.  Waiting for glue to dry is the hardest thing about the project.  I would love to see your bridges and hear your feedback on how you though this project went.