Cruising on Cardboard - Save Your Empty Boxes and Rev Up Your Hot Wheels

I recently broke down and bought a water table for the kids. Big Lots had them for super cheap, Tallulah is mesmerized by water toys and it's summer - so why not? Along with a big toy comes a big box. Of course we recycle around here, but looking at all that cardboard I thought surely there was something fun that it could be used for before it hit the bin.


Tallulah is into what she calls "racers" AKA race cars. I thought why not draw a highway for her cars on the box. I had seen a similar raceway done on a shower curtain over at Filth Wizardry. The nice thing about using a shower curtain or an old sheet is that it could easily be folded up and put away. However, with a squirmy toddler that also means it could easily get crumpled up into a ball and never used as the highway it was intended to be.


We kept the road on the floor for about two weeks. Not only did the "racers" go for a spin so did her collection of trains. Speaking of trains we placed several of her train track accessories on the cardboard road like tunnels and crossing arms.


The best part of the cardboard box road had nothing to do with cars. The entire family enjoyed pulling up a piece of floor and some markers and doing a little doodling. Tallulah would call out requests for landmarks: her favorite bounce house Locomotion, a farm, a monkey jumping on a bed and even our house were depicted.

The cardboard highway has finally gone to that big recycling bin in the sky, but it was fun while it lasted. I even cut out the picture of our house that my husband drew so that I could hang it in Tallulah's room and she could remember the fun we had with our road.