Halloween Carnival - Ticket Booth and Directory

Ever since Laura Carson (artfullymusing.blogspot.com) announced her Halloween project for this year - a Halloween Carnival - I couldn't wait until she started posting the videos and tutorials.  You can see the entire project and instructions on her blog on a page dedicated to the carnival.  I've lost track of the count of all the elements that can be built - there's booths and games and rides - and even a hot air balloon!

I've made eight of the projects so far - the Ticket Booth, Directory Signpost, Pumpkin Pets, Stump an Owl, Boo Bash, Stare Down a Gargoyle, the Haunted Carousel and the Hot Air Balloon.  I also accepted Laura's challenge to create a element of my own -I'm calling it the Zombie Zipper - which is almost done and I will show it in a later post.

Throughout the projects I have used two paper collections - Graphic 45 Steampunk Spells and Wicked by My Mind's Eye.  I used images from all of Laura's Halloween collage sheets from both this year and last year.

In the photos you may see one of the Lori Mitchell Halloween figurines I have been collecting over the last few years.  I am always on the lookout for new ones in a shop we frequent on vacation.  This year I added two - the mummy (thanks to my sister) and the little bat boy.  I knew when I saw the carnival it would be the perfect environment for these characters and it is!

Today I'm featuring my versions of the Ticket Booth and Directory Signpost.  These were the first two I made.  I followed Laura's directions and used many of the items she listed in the first tutorial.  The only change I made was to add the two shutters to the Ticket Booth - I wanted a little more width.

The biggest challenge I had was with the paint I used on the metal cans.  I had purchased some small bottles of acrylic paint that according to the label were supposed to work on metal - "supposed to" I guess is a relative term.  After many coats and some degree of frustration I developed a method that mostly worked for the subsequent elements.  I sanded the metal and then applied a coat of matte medium before painting.  Now, I don't think this is a perfect solution but since the objects don't get handled that much I think it will be ok.

In the closeup photo you can see I added a coin to the Little Frankie Stein's hand so he could buy a ticket.  The skeleton is all set to hand him his ticket as soon as he gets paid.

At night I light the Ticket Booth by placing a tea light behind the skeleton and another one on top behind the pediment (LED tea lights of course).  And to see how these elements look with all the other pieces I made for the Halloween Carnival, check out the Halloween Carnival project page.