My son absolutely LOVES all things fire trucks/firefighters so for his birthday he wanted a fire theme to celebrate. Since we couldn’t actually have anyone over for a party we decided that we would turn the living room into a fire station as a way to make it special! We pulled out all of the fire themed toys and then i wanted to make some over the top decorations to go with it!
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What do you need?
- Firetruck
- Foam Core (I used 10 30″x20″ pieces)
- LOTS of colored paper
- Hot glue gun and lots of glue sticks
- Spray Adhesive
- Pencil
- Utility knife
- If you have this one from Cricut it would work wonders but since I don’t (still relatively new to Cricut) I used our regular utility knife (it’s a little less precise but does the job).
- Craft ruler/straight edge
- Cricut (see our guide to buying a Cricut in Canada!)
Fire House Construction – Building the walls
- Side walls (x2):
- Lay down two pieces of foam core with the long sides together
- Using your straight straight edge/ruler, cut a piece (lengthwise) of foam core 3″ wide (from a separate piece)
- Hot glue this piece over the seam of where the two pieces meet to attach them together
2. Front/Back:
- Lay out the pieces the same as the sides (long sides together)
- Use a ruler to draw a straight line 4” out from the side and 30” up from the bottom on either side of the front.
- Freehand draw a semicircle to create an archway
- Use a utility knife to cut it out
- Use the scrap you just cut out as a template for the back archway so they are identical
- Cut 4 pieces of foam core 3″x6″ and use your hot glue gun to attach the bottom archway piece to the top on either side
Firehouse Construction – Putting the pieces together
- This was arguably the trickiest part of the project but I was able to do it by myself fairly easily. If you have someone around to help hold while glue sets I’m sure it would make the process a bit easier.
- To attach the sides, put a bead of hot glue down the long edge of one piece and then lay the other piece on top. Hold in place until the glue dries
- Cut 2 pieces of 6″x10″ foam core and score them down the middle of the long edge (cut through the top but don’t go all the way through the piece)
- Hinge the score mark (fold to a 90 degree angle) and then glue that piece into the corner of the two wall pieces. One above the middle brace and one below. This will strengthen the walls and add a lot of support.
- Repeat for all four sides.
- Attach the roof by running a bead of hot glue along the top edge and laying two pieces of foam core over top to make a roof. The pieces will be too big.
- Once the top glue is dry (cold) flip the entire structure over and cut the roof to size by using your utility knife. Brace the inside of the roof the same way you did the walls by using a piece of hinged foam core.
Decorating the Firehouse
- Cut ~115 red rectangles out of card stock that are 3″x5″ for the sides to make the bricks. TIP: Use your Cricut for this! In design space, size a rectangle using the shape feature, duplicate it to maximize the space and print on a large mat. This makes cutting go quite fast!
- Cut ~40 red rectangles out of card stock that are 3″x3.5″ to make bricks for the front and back. (Cut on Cricut – see how to above)
- Use the text feature in Cricut to create a sign that says “fire station”. Measure the distance between the top of your archway to the top of the structure and make the text an inch smaller. Add a rectangle behind that is half an inch larger on all sides. Print and attach to the front.
- Glue the red bricks to the sides and front using spray adhesive
- TIP: To alternate the brick pattern I cut 10 of the squares in half so that the row started with a half brick
Accessories
No fire station is complete without a few key accessories!
- Hang a fire hat on the inside wall
- Park the fire truck inside
- Create a life size fire hydrant and firehouse dog.
- I used designs found in Cricut’s image library, changing the colors to match my theme and Jennifer makers larger than mat tutorial to complete this work. She made the process SUPER simple!
Happy crafting!
Jo
