DIY Car Wheel doorstop or cushion

Yeah, ok, it looks like a bit of a flat tyre in that pic above, but no matter how hard I tried, a bag of rice is still a bag of rice and that stuff refuses to stand up.

BUT, how cute, right!? My son’s room has a bit of a car theme. And when I say a “bit” I mean, it’s the Roadster room of his father’s dreams.

When we found out we were having a boy, we didn’t want to do the traditional sport or jungle animal theme (although, we have a current obsession for Raa Raa The Noisy Little Lion, so he’d probably adore a jungle room). With a 1967 Fastback Mustang sitting in the garage, it was pretty clear where we were heading with this room.

But there isn’t a lot of really cool car decor (that doesn’t involve cartoons and fat fluffy bubble cars). So a lot of it had to be made.

With a child that thinks banging doors is THE BEST GAME EVAAAAH, I needed a big heavy doorstop. And it needed to be cheap and cheerful but not look like crap.

This car wheel doorstop TOTALLY took me one hour to make. Ok, maybe it was like one hour and 15 minutes, but I needed to keep stopping to take photos and my stupid printer kept eating paper and then I got ink all over my hands, so give me a break alright? BUT if, I’d I lived in a semi-functioning world, it would have been super quick.

Enter the trackie daks (or sweatpants, if you’re not an Aussie). I ‘borrowed’ an old ratty pair that my husband will now see are never coming back (sorry darl), grabbed a 2kg bag of rice and a piece of grey felt. That’s all you need! Oh, and the pattern which you can download here.

Once you’ve cut out the paper pattern, pin it to the fabric and cut out your pieces.

Hot tip: Buy the cheapest felt you can find. You want the scratchy plastic stuff that stands up on its own. I only had this fancy proper wool felt (that was bloody expensive) at home and it was shit. It’s too fine and soft and fluffs up too easily.

Pop your grey felt on the right side of the sweatpants fabric and sew it on. If you’re in a rush or you just can’t be bothered to sew #nojudgement – you could just hot glue that bad boy on. Why not? Go for your life. More time to drink tea and read The Thud.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to pin on the long strip around the edges of the wheel. I used the wrong side of the fabric to make it look like the tread of the tyre. So pin the wrong side to the right side and start to sew around. Make sense? Here’s a pic.

Remember that as you’re sewing around the circle, you’ll want to bunch up that long strip a tiny bit so that when you turn it inside out it will sit properly.

And make sure you leave an opening at the ends so you can pour in your rice.

Turn it inside out and you’ll see your wheel shape! If the seam is a bit stretchy or buckling, turn it back inside out and trim the seam allowance as much as you can.

See how the wrong side of the fabric looks a bit like the tread of the tyre?

The fill him up with your rice. You might want to get it started with a funnel. Because MESS. Just make sure your funnel has a large enough spout or you may lose the will to live.

Hand stitch up the opening. Go back over it a few times to make sure it’s really properly closed up because MESS.

Stupid rice. Stupid fat hands filling up stupid doorstop. RICE EVERYWHERE. I’m sure you’ll be much better and much more patient at this part.

I am showing you what this doorstop looks like when it’s lying flat. Much like a woman’s stomach when she sunbakes, it looks better when lying down because gravity is smoothing everything out.

But even when he’s looking like he’s driven over a nail and needs some air, I think he’s still pretty awesome, don’t you?

But WAIT there’s more! You could fill him up with polyfill instead and have a little tyre cushion!

Psst….This is the one you pin!

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