The Steampunk Spells Halloween Train!

 I've been playing along with Laura Carson's "Halloween Carnival Event" on the Artfully Musing blog. 

 I wanted a spooky Steampunk Spells Train for my carnival so I created this one and I love it!

I purchased a small plain wooden train from "Toys R Us" to decorate for my spooky carnival. I painted each train car. Then I cut out and glued on paper from the 8 X 8 Steampunk Spells paper pad by Graphic 45, and some from the 6 X 6 Authentique "Enchanted" paper pad. The train is adorable and creepy! I still have to finish two more train cars. Here is the train so far.

I ordered some more Tim Holtz mini-gears to go in the center of each wheel. I ran out after the train engine.

My train also could use some spooky characters to ride the train. I'll work on that as well.

I have two more train cars to finish and my train will be ready for my spooky guests to ride.
I used the Tim Holtz distress ripe persimmon for the orange train, and black soot distress paint for the wheels. I like the fluidity of the distress paint. It's fun to work with. It's like ink, but is opaque. Pretty cool on wood!! The teal and purple paint is from martha stewart. It's a nice paint as well, more like regular acrylic paint. I use scotch quick-drying tacky glue to adhere the papers to the painted wood. After the paper is dry, I sealed the paper surfaces with a matte decoupage medium. I stuck the gears on with glossy accents. I distressed the edges of the paper with the black soot distress paint. Sometimes I distressed the edges with the orange or purple paint. I usually distress with distress ink, but I didn't want it to smear when I applied the matte medium over the top. Distress paint won't smear once it's dry and you can apply matte medium over the top of it with no problem.

Here are the last two cars I finished. The open car, and the caboose.

Here's the caboose! I made the gourd out of polymer clay using a tutorial from Carloline McFarlane-Watts.

Here are the parked train cars from the back.

Here is the Steampunk Spells Train ready to go.

To see the rest of my Halloween Carnival click here.

Happy Halloween!

October 2013 Tag based on Tim Holtz tags of 2013

Here is my October 2013 Tag based on the October Tim Holtz 12-tags-of-2013 tutorial. I love the new owl and moon dies!!! I also plan to get the frame die sometime in the future!

I love Halloween and thought it would be fun to swing on the moon this Halloween!

I tried out the new Tim Holtz glitter on the moon. It works nicely! I crackled the tree and tried out the new Tim Holtz spooky fence strip die. I only used the gate part. It's a cool die. I made the charm using a free image from the internet somewhere and a jewelry charm finding and some epoxy resin.

Here's the second tag I made. I stuck more to the tutorial. I still haven't got the marbleizing with the distress paints technique down yet. I'll have to practice some more. I got it to work better a few months back. I like the glitter frame die from the tutorial, and think it's a great idea for many different cards/projects, so I tried to improvise with the frame since I don't have the frame die from the tutorial yet.

So I glittered up another owl from the new owl and moon movers and shapers die's but then I decided to use the owl in my Spooky Halloween Carnival I'm building for Halloween. The gate strip die will be excellent around my Carnival!! The Carnival is not finished yet, but you can check it out here.

My Spooky Halloween Carnival Village based on the  Laura Carson's "Halloween Carnival Event" on the Artfully Musing blog.

I included a few pictures of items from my village below.

Here you can get a tiny ticket to my spooky Halloween Carnival.

Or take a relaxing seat on the bench where the witches hang out.

or take a ride on my Scary Carousel if you dare!!!

The song is called "Calliope of Death" and is available on itunes.

So even if you don't enjoy Halloween like I do, we just have fun with it. Nothing evil there, only skeletons, spiders, and goblins goofing off!!!

My husband teaches anatomy, skeletons just want to have fun!

So many fun projects, so little time!