Happy Monday everyone. After a lovely weekend of bike riding and bike mods I wanted to share with you some great ideas on how to be crafty with your bikes. Family bike rides are popular in my house and they are a great way to exercise, enjoy nature, and become familiar with your community together. But sometimes when we take our bikes out of storage or pick up a second hand bike it might not reflect our personality perfectly putting a damper on some of that biking enthusiasm. A great way to get around this is by decorating our bikes. This year my son has really been enjoying superheroes, particularly The Flash, so I decided to decorate his bike in the style of The Flash! I started by adding some lightning bolt (yellow) streamers on his handlebars, a red seat cover as well as a flash symbol on the front. I even went an extra step and decorated his helmet the same way! I made these decorations for my son but I have included a couple tutorials with some bike decorations that are easy enough for young ones to do themselves. The first two links show two different versions of how you can add streamers to your bike's handlebars. The next link shows four fun ways to decorate your bike spokes. There are numerous other ways to personalize your bikes including painting the frame or bell, wrapping it in cool coloured duct tape, adding decals and stickers and of course adding some homemade noisemakers. Brainstorm some ideas with your little ones and have fun. It's always a good idea to make some planning sketches first so I have included a tutorial on how to draw a bike.
The fifth link is to a paint along tutorial in acrylics that depicts a floral basket on the handlebars of a bike. If you wish your bike looked like that but you don't have a basket, not to worry because the last two links I am sharing are to tutorials that teach you how to make your own bike basket and how to add flowers to it!
I hope that one of these projects inspires you to get out and ride. Please feel free to like and share. If you do create a magnificent bike makeover we would love to see it! Take a picture and tag us #temiskamingartgallery.
That's it for now. Have a great day folks. Toon in tomorrow for another great art/craft idea.
Sincerely; Your friendly neighbourhood art gallery.