This pin caught my eye this week because it looked so simple and fun. The 'simplicity' of the blog post should have been a warning that it would not be simple for me! In the end, I like the look but it was a lot more work than I anticipated.
The first step to this simple project was shopping since the only items I had at home was the spray paint. I visited
Archie McPhee's for some fun plastic animal toys and found a laughing hippo and a monkey doing a hand stand. I also looked at a few other stores for a wider selection of animals but these were the only ones I could find.
I didn't have any scrap wood lying around so I stopped by JoAnn's and bought some wood plaques. They were cheap and perfect for this project! The plastic animals were $1.50 each and the wood plaques were $.79 and $1.39.
I then super glued the hippo and monkey to their appropriate plaque before taking them outside for spray painting. I might suggest that one does not spray paint outside on a 45F day. It takes a looooooong time for the paint to dry. I would also suggest roughing up the plastic toys with some sandpaper before painting. I did not and the paint had a hard time adhering.
I spray painted the animals and let them dry for an hour before hitting them with some more spray paint since the first coat didn't cover as well as I would have liked.
I also have a heavy hand when it comes to paint so there might have been too much paint on these guys. I would suggest using a lighter touch and more coats of paint to achieve a tidier look.
This was a fun project even though it had some struggles. I would certainly do this again and these little guys are going to look great in the basement craft/play room once that HUGE project is done.
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