Happy Halloween! Lots of our littles love to help us in the kitchen. That's what inspired our Toddler Chef Halloween this year. There's not likely to be a lot of door to door trick or treating this year, but there will be some socially distant costume parades. That inspired me to turn my son's push car into a food truck. It was surprisingly easy. I spent one full day fully working on it and had what could have been a final piece. I spent one or two more nights just adding details and fine tuning.

Supplies

The supplies for the basic shape and prop are things you probably have lying around so this is a fun project for pretend play anytime you come into the possession of a large cardboard box:

cardboard
pencil
box cutter
masking tape
paint & bushes

supplies needed to take your food truck on the road

push car or roller toy
duct tape
more cardboard

Step 1: Cut Shape and Prep

I held the cardboard in front of the car I was going to use and free-handed a design with pencil. If you want a more complex shape you can use a projector to help.

Then carefully use a box cutter to cut out the shape and any details.

Cardboard cuts often leaves messy or sometimes sharp edges so you can use masking tape to clean up and protect edges.

Finally, paint a nice coat or two of white to start. This way your colors won't come out muddled when you paint your final design.

Step 2: Paint and Add Details

Get creative, get the kiddos involved.

I let the toddler paint one side (read: turned my back and he already poured out half a tube of paint) and I channeled my inner Italian to make a cool pizzeria façade. The bulk colors are freehand paint (I should have used the masking tape to get cleaner lines but wasn't thinking). If you're artistic you can paint on letters. I have a silhouette cameo and used it to cut out vinyl letters and stick them on. Much quicker and makes up for my poor handwriting. I included the door cut-out and when it was all dry used packing tape to re-attach it. It's not very robust but did actually hold it level when opened.

Step 3: Attach to Car

Ta-Da- final product ready for the Halloween Parade. don't look behind the scenes, it's not pretty. I used scrap cardboard and lots of duct tape. Realized I could have done the front too but alas, tis the day before Halloween so I'm happy as is.

Step 4: Happy Halloween!

I bought some pizza flavored pretzel bites for kiddo to hand out while we cruise and made a cardboard pizza with the scrap cut-outs for the wheels for extra fun. Add in chef costume and adorable toddler and we're ready for a night out.