My son's school wanted us to make costumes with recycled items.....It was a trash to treasure thyme. It was a first time for me....so I asked my 4 year old what he would like to be. He said a Pay loader......obviously i was stumped! so surfed the net and came across looledo.com. They had something like that made out of toilet tissue roll. I looked at it and came up with my larger version of it!!
For me it cost was zero!! my son loved it and ...come to think of it,,,,it can be used for a long time to play with after the purpose of costume is done!

Step 1:

As you can see from the images....it's all cardboard boxes!! For the wheels i attached 2 cardboard boxes against the grain...then taped the edges so i gave a nice finish. For the axle i got long cardboard tubes (you can find it in material shops! they will give it to you free once the length of material is over!). The lifting up arms ( i don't know what it's called)....well...like the tiers i pasted 2 boards up and cut the shape out....later i reinforced the arms with plastic sticks and taped it up...i also got a light Bristol board and hot glued it to the arms.
For the body as you can see form the pictures....i cut out the windows....(later i added another box under it as it wasn't high enough for my son to stand inside it...you can see it in the second picture). For the bottom of the body i removed the flaps and cut out a square smaller than the top box opening so i can be hot glued and taped properly. As you can see all the edges and joints were reinforced with tape.

Step 2:

Here everything is assembled to check if it's okay...

Step 3:

Now all the boards were painted with left over paint that we had around the house...hence the colors!

Step 4:

Assemble as the picture shows...
before adding the front wheel ...first axle ...then the pay loader arm then the wheels. After adding the wheels tape the ends of the axle with thick tape so the wheels don't come out. Cut out circles and rectangles for the front and back lights...paint them and stick them with white glue/ hot glue. Stick the hood to the top of the body too.

Step 5:

If you closely at the arm of the pay loader you would notice a string going from it to the body of the vehicle. This was an after thought so i don't have the pictures to show the inside of it....but I'll try to explain as best as i could. there are 3 washes used here. one on the arm. one in the body and the other at the end. I tied a bead to the string and threaded it through the arm of the pay loader ( the bead is to hold the thread in the arm and not go through the washer. then the thread went through the washer in the body (washer was added so the cardboard won't tear) . from here i passed the string through a L shaped PVC tube.... the other end of the L shape would end near the window. Here i attached the string to another washer so that the string won't go through the tube and also my son can pull on it . I passed a pencil through the washer....so it was easier for him to pull . My 4 year old was thrilled to discover the arm moving up and down when he pulled the pencil! We lifted the back for him to crawl inside...and off he went!.
Well that's about it...it cost us nothing as we had the paint and washers and string!