Today it gives me great pleasure to share with you the story of my little Sister’s wedding present, a story that’s as sweet as it is nutty. It’s also utterly delicious and so easy to spread (so go on then, spread the love and share this awesome story with your Facebook Friends and Instapeeps 😀 )

My Little Sister’s Getting Married!

OK so she’s actually gone and done that already now, but for the sake of a captivating headline and equally compelling story let’s all pretend like it hasn’t happened yet… Now come with me on a journey as I turn 4 Hot Wheels and Matchbox castings into the wedding present to end all wedding presents 🙂

Nutella, Nutella, Nuts…

 

When my little Sister announced that she was getting married I knew straight away that my gift to her was going to be 1: made of diecast, and 2: in 1:64 scale. I also had a fairly good idea that the theme of the custom was going to be Nutella, she was nuts* about it after all (*Pun totally intended)

What I was going to do beyond this however was a mystery – and in typical Alex style I left it until there was only a month before the big day before I decided to actually get off my date and start creating something.

But what?

The Mission I Somehow Chose To Accept

Cue the duh duh duh-duh theme music because in keeping with the whole “oh seriously why did you get yourself into this mess” that is my life I decided that with only a month to create something amazing I would make not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4 custom vehicles!!

**It’s at this point that the afore mentioned theme music becomes one monotonous duuuhhhhhhh as I sit staring at my work bench wondering where I left my Belinda Carlisle Tape back in 1989 and why the bin man is always called Dave… and other such things completely unrelated to the task at hand.**

But like an epileptic blind man playing dodgeball, an idea hits me out of nowhere and sends me into a frenzy of action, action that looked a little something like this…

A Wedding Gift In Progress

OK so I think I like where this is going… yep, definitely pleased so far. But allow me to share a few of the details of the build thus far

• The Matchbox buggy beetle thingy became a steam roller, the steam roller part even pivots because the stalk of the rivet just happens to sit in the right place! #Winning.
• The Custom Chevy pickup was given an extended cab in order to accomodate the back hoe. I also made sure the wheel arch was long enough to show the caterpillar tracks which I planned on keeping in place of the rear wheels.
• The Volkswagen T1 Panel Bus is going to be the cement mixer. I just have to cut the thing – and precisely at that!
• The roadwork equipment being used here came from an el-cheapo set I found at The Reject Shop (an Australian equivalent of a Dime Store or $1 store or whatever they’re called everywhere else in the world – you get the point I’m sure)… Ironically I forgot to mention the point, that being that this set also came with a trailer which I planned on using to hold these newly released mini jars or nutella – HOW CONVENIENT 🙂

And now as Jeremy Clarkson would say “Cue the music” … or was that “How hard can it be” ??!?

Now we’re getting somewhere! I just need to add a sprinkling of Nutella and well, like a boatload of painting and detailing. OK FINE!

The Paint I Almost Ate

In order to get the true Nutella effect I needed to find a brown that was suitable. Unfortunately no spray cans I could find came in a shade of brown that even remotely matched the delicious hue of Nutella and so I resorted to heading down to my local paint shop (Bunnings in this instance) with a jar of Nutella and proceeded to get paint colour matched to the exact specifications of the hazelnut chocolate spread (trademark patent pending all rights reserved etc etc)

I soon found myself in a bit of a delicious, I mean dilemma. Aaaaaaand I rest my case.
 – Seriously, even though I knew it was paint, my brain was so convinced that it was Nutella that I genuinely stopped smelling paint and started smelling Nutella! I didn’t eat any FYI… almost but :p

Now It was Time To Make Some Decals, add some layers of colour and finish a wedding present deserving of the best sister any man could ask for 🙂 #LoveYouBecs!

Sidenote – When I revealed the layers I found myself looking at the cleanest masking line I had ever done IN MY LIFE! In an upcoming How-To guide I will share details on the method I used and how to obtain clean as %$#! lines every time! And yes I use a spray can which of course makes it even more impressive! #GoMe

Back to the Cocoa Hazelnut Goodness That is Customising…

It was time to reveal the afore mentioned layers and thus start to see how this custom wedding set is going to look 🙂

Next step was to add the decals and the other parts of each vehicle…

I had fun with the Nutella coloured paint dipping each end of the cement mixer barrel into the jar. I had initially planned on painting the vehicles in a brown but without spray I wouldn’t be able to get the smooth finish required and so resorted to using it for the details. That being said I had always planned on making the cement mixer’s barrel look like a jar of Nutella. It came out sweet* hey 🙂 (Again, pun totally intended. You should know that by now :p )

And now it gives me great pleasure to share the finished vehicles, but don’t go anywhere because this story has one final chapter with a twist not even I saw coming!

Custom Hot Wheels (and Matchbox) Nutella Style!

 

Nutella-Bilt

Baby Chevy Got Back

Beatle Juicer

 

The Whole Jar, I mean Set 😀

 

Hazelnuts! We Have a Problem

Being a wedding present there is no way I can simply present it to my sister and soon-to-be brother in law as is! I had always planned on putting it in a display case but after going all out and creating such an array of vehicles I had kinda stuffed myself in that regard. No way in hell were these all going to fit in one display case, at least not any that I owned. Now you might be wondering why I didn’t simply jump online or head to my local hobby store and buy a display case for a 1:18 scale car but it’s really quite simple.

The Wedding is Tomorrow!

I shit you not! I did mention that I like to leave things to the last minute yeah? You also remember that poor bastard playing dodgeball? Yeah well it happened again and as I was standing in the garage looking at all the scraps of wood and piles of crap I had accumulated I had a GENIUS idea. No seriously – it was this idea that turned an otherwise pretty impressive custom set of vehicles into a truly one of a kind wedding present that could be cherished for years to come

Hey Hey! OK so maybe I’m slightly bias (and clearly need to get out more) but how good is this for an idea!?!

I then completed the picture by adding a plaque that celebrated the date and occasion. The finished product, which you have already seen since it’s the feature image above this post (FFS Alex, sort it out would ya?!) is presented to you most wonderful readers below 🙂

Please enjoy, and again SPREAD the love on your various social channels 🙂

The Marketing Opportunity Nutella Missed

Before I leave you I wanted to share one final part of the story, and epilogue of sorts that I’m using to call out Nutella for being as blind to opportunity as they are delicious. Now when I finished these customs I naturally shared them with Nutella through their various social channels. I even hinted at  the potential marketing opportunities that existed here, going so far as to create some mock up ideas they could springboard off. I sent these images (shared below) to Nutella and the only reply I ever got was through Facebook which was to say “they look wonderful”

Hurumph. And to the supposed Marketing team at Nutella – you seriously missed an opportunity to market your brand to an audience in the 100’s of 1000’s.

Krispy Kreme Australia …

…on the other hand consists of a much savvier marketing team. A team that has certainly capitalised on an opportunity and in so doing championed the creation of something pretty awesome. But more on that next week 😉

 

 

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