Get Ready For Cars 2 With These Family Activities

Rev your engines as your favorite characters from Cars are back with Cars 2 racing into theatres everywhere on June 24th! When star racecar Lightning McQueen (voice of Owen Wilson) and the incomparable tow truck Mater (voice of Larry the Cable Guy) head overseas to compete in the first-ever World Grand Prix, Mater gets caught up in an intriguing adventure of his own: international espionage!

Oil Can Holders

You'll Need

Empty plastic frosting container with cover

Ruler

Pencil

Scissors

Craft paper (yellow, blue, and red)

Glue Stick

Template for Oil Can Holders

Red colored pencil or marker

Instructions

1.  Measure the height of the container from just below the lid to the bottom.  Using that measurement as the width, cut a strip of yellow craft paper long enough to go around the container with a little overlap.  Then cut another strip, 1/2 inch narrower, from blue craft paper.

2.  Glue the blue paper strip atop the yellow one, centering it.

3.  Wrap the two-layer strip around the container and glue together the overlapping ends. 

4.  For a label, print out the template and use the pieces to cut shapes out of the specified colors of paper.

5.  Now glue the red circle atop the yellow circle, and the yellow stripe atop the red stripe.  Glue the 2-layer stripe atop the 2-layer circle, setting it at an angle.

6.  Print the name of the items your child plans to store in the container on the center of the label..  Then glue the label onto the container.

Tire Track Tees

You'll Need

Newspaper

T-shirt

Cardboard

Wooden dowel or long handle wooden spoon

Small replacement tire or large toy truck wheel

2 rubber bands

Black fabric paint

Paper plate

Foam Brush

Instructions

1.  Cover your work surface with newspaper to protect it.

2.  Place the t-shirt flat on the newspaper and insert a piece of cardboard between the front and back layers to keep the paint from bleeding through.

3.  Insert a dowel or the handle of a wooden spoon through the center of the tire.  If the handle isn't thick enough to keep the tire from sliding back and forth, wrap a rubber band around the wood on each side of the hub.

4.  Pour some fabric paint on a paper plate.  Use the foam brush to apply paint to the tire treads all the way around.

5.  Now have your child take a practice run or two by rolling the tire across newspaper to see how the prints look.  Once your child gets the hang of it, apply more paint to the tire and then print tracks on the shirt.  You can paint a pair of tracks or cover the fabric with a crisscross of prints.

6.  Allow the paint to dry thoroughly before removing the cardboard.  Then heat set the paint according to the manufacturer's directions.

Whitewall Tire Cookies

You'll Need

Sugar cookie dough

Rolling pin

Flour

Wax paper

Round cookie or fondant cutters (2 1/4, 1 1/2, and 5/8 inches)

Baking sheet

Cooling rack

White ready-to-use fondant

Plastic kitchen gloves

Black food coloring

Confectioner's sugar

Small tube of decorator's icing

Instructions

1.  Roll the cookie dough out to 1/4-inch thickness on a flour-dusted sheet of wax paper.  Use the largest round cutter to cut out a bunch of circles for tires.  Then use the smallest cutter to cute a circle of dough from the center of each tire.  Bake and cool the tire cookies according to the recipe directions.

2.  Wearing plastic kitchen gloves, knead black food coloring into a little more than half of the fondant.  If the fondant gets sticky, dust it with confectioner's sugar.

3.  Working on wax paper, roll out the black fondant to 1/4-inch thickness, again sprinkling on confectioner's sugar if it gets sticky.  Cut out a large circle for each cookie tire, then cut a small size circle from the center of each fondant circle (to match the center holes in the cookies).

4.  Place a black fondant circle atop one of the cookies, lining up the center holes.  Gently press the outer edge of the fondant around the edge of the cookie.  Repeat with the remaining cookies.

5.  For the whitewalls, roll out the remaining untinted fondant.  Use the medium and small size cutters to cut out a whitewall ring for each tire.  Use the rolling pin to gently flatten and spread each ring just a bit.

6.  Top each cookie with a whitewall ring, using a dab of decorator's icing applied to the underside to hold it.

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