When I saw this great DIY bath toy idea from The Brooding Hen, I was really eager to make my boys their own set to use as a wall track for their cars. It’s inexpensive, relatively simple to make, and it’s easy to grab-and-go as a fun and convenient toy for camping trips.
DIY Tube Wall
Materials:
PVC Pipe Elbows and T’s
A variety of suction cups
Make sure to buy the kind that has a ridge (mine came with metal hooks, but I just removed them) so the suction cups do not pop out of the hole once they are wedged inside.
A drill, and a drill bit that is a touch smaller than the base of your suction cups.
- You may also want to use a flat-head screwdriver, and a bowl of hot water to soak your suction cup ends in so they are more pliable.
Directions:
See the two holes on each end of the PVC pipe (before the lip)? We found those to be the perfect spots to drill our holes through for the suction cups.
Soak the end of the suction cup in hot water to make it more pliable so it will squeeze through the hole more readily.
Use a flat-head screw driver to help wedge the suction cups through the holes. I found that once I had one of the edges in, I could wriggle it back and forth until it popped into place. This is by far the most difficult part of the project, but it gets easier after you fumble through the first couple and figure out a few tricks. Soaking the tips in hot water definitely made them easier to squeeze inside, so I recommend not skipping over that step!
Tube Play!
Once the suction cups are wedged in place, find a flat, vertical surface to construct your tube wall on, such as:
- a window/ sliding door
- the side of your trailor
- or the tub!
The boys use their tube wall as a track for their cars and as a water-slide for their bath toys, but you can be as creative as you like by constructing a water wall, or by experimenting with different materials such as: marbles, rocks, ice, seeds, rice, pasta, and beans. My bugs have already got a lot of play out of our set, and I predict we will be using it even more once the cold weather hits.
If you are interested in learning how to make a sensory/ water table out of PVC pipe, click here!
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