Donut Tire Swing

The first thing I needed to do was find a tire. I was able to pick from a few my neighbor had in a pile and of course chose the heaviest one known to man because I liked the tread pattern. I would recommend using a car rather than tractor tire like I did. That is unless you have a strong back and a team of horses.

I washed the tire off with a garden hose and removed any water that I accidentally sprayed in with a spare turkey baster I keep in my garage for situations such as this.

Next, I headed to my local hardware store to find suitable paint. There were about 10 cans in the "oops" paint section, and I was astonished that the perfect shade of both brown and hot pink were among them. I was even more surprised that they were outdoor, latex exterior paint! Each can of paint was $2.99!

I should've purchased a lottery ticket while I was in town, but instead went home to paint my tire.

I put a piece of plastic down on the table and started painting what would be the underside of the "donut." The wet brown paint looked exactly like melted chocolate and it was the first time I ever got food cravings from looking at a Firestone tire.

After the brown paint was completely dry I flipped the tire over and used a silver Sharpie to make a rough sketch of the area that would become the frosting section.

With care, I continued with the melted chocolate impostor paint.

I brushed the hot pink "frosting" on, being mindful of my chocolate line. I dabbed some tan paint around the perimeter of the tire to mimic filling.

What donut would be complete without sprinkles?

Unfortunately, this is the only step I did not photograph because it was getting late and I was low on patience. I'm sure I can accredit being hangry to looking at "melted chocolate" and going without dinner in order to finish this project before National Donut Day was officially over.

I tried to make a potato "stamp" to add the color of the sprinkles but when that didn't work, I just traced ovals on freehand in pencil and filled them in. I would recommend making a paper template.

All that was left was to find a rope and limb that were strong enough to hang this swing for a five minutes in order to get a picture and video footage. See TikTok video, attached. It's cute and I should get an award just for successfully rolling a tire in front of myself in the opening shot.

Totally TIRED but happy with the results, this donut tire swing will be given away to a local police officer with young children in my area.