The Black Cat Carnival - Part II

Previously I wrote about creating my Black Cat Carnival inspired by Laura Carson's Halloween Event. You can find my first post about my project HERE where I described how I made my Steampunk Airship.

Today I'll give you a bit more information on how I made the Carnival Entrance and Ticket Machine.

The Entrance:

I wanted to display a banner of the name of my Carnival, so I painted two wooden skewers silver and used E6000 glue to attach them on a wooden stand. Two silver bead caps were slid on top of each and I printed out my banner with two of Laura's scaredy cats on each side. I coloured it in with Copics. Underneath the banner I wanted to add two more of Laura's images; her black cats and moons were perfect for my theme! I also used her cat balloon images, printed them out and added Glossy Accents to make each one shiny. I wrapped wire around each and tied the bundle to the handles of the bike. The "Balloons" sign is also hers; I simply attached it to a black-inked toothpick and wired it to the bike too.

The Penny-Farthing was made from a tiny red bicycle ornament I found at Michael's (yep, in the Christmas section!). It had a regular sized front wheel, so I snipped it off and inserted a metal key ring I had in my stash - first wrapping it with wire for the spokes. Again, E6000 glue came to the rescue to attach the new wheel, after which the whole thing was coloured black with some alcohol ink.

The Ticket Machine:

I really went to town to try to create a Steampunk style ticket machine... Steampunk is all about the gears, pipes, metal rivets and mechanical devices that still retain a Victorian look. In the early 1800s, Charles Babbage (the father of the modern-day computer) designed the first computing machine, which is why I named mine "The Babbage Mechanical Ticket Machine".

I started off by pulling out a vintage metal clock piece I've had since I made my Steampunk sculpture last year. I liked the fact it had three "windows" and lots of places for rivets and gears... so this became the front of my machine. I realize it's not in scale with my Steampunk Airship, but that would have been way too tiny to create all the details I wanted. I cut seven pieces of white foamboard; four for the walls, a base, a roof and a small part for the sign on top. 

I slid a piece of clear plastic underneath the faceplate and poured Glossy Accents into each window, and set it aside to dry. Now I could place instructions behind each opening, so I printed off three steps a Carnival-goer would need to perform to retrieve their ride ticket and taped them to the back.

I used good old E6000 again (notice the new tube... um, yeah) to attach brads to gears, gears to the faceplate along with steam tubes, rivets and watch parts. After building the box from foam core, I cut different sized squares of metallic adhesive tape and layered the entire box in silver. Then I attached the faceplate and inserted the handle on the side.  I added rivets to the box by first poking a needle through and then inserted metallic brads into the pilot holes - easy!

Wow, now that's a messy desk...

The roof and base were added last, with more gears and metal bits decorating the machine's sign.

Okay, I must confess this took awhile to make; each night after work I did a bit so it could dry between steps - but it was totally fun to do!

Up next: The Carousel that used to be a photo holder. Honest.