Tiny Circus Wagon

The tiniest of circuses is coming to town, and they've purchased a shiny new wagon to bring in their prize polar bear. This project is made from an Altoids Smalls tin, so it's pretty teeny; the wheels are only 3/4" tall. I covered the tin with some chilly blue circus stripes and stars, and added shiny gold filigree.  The wagon may be small, but it's fancy! 

 

There are four bits of filigree around the edges of the wagon: one large one at the top, two on the bottom of the sides, and one, a Symmetrical Raw Brass Flourish, at the top of the sides that I cut in half with some sharp shears. The filigree was attached using E6000 glue (super toxic; use it sparingly and outside!) A paper medallion sits at the top of the wagon. A tutorial on how to make paper medallions can be found here.

The wheels were silver, but I painted them with a gold paint pen to better match the filigree. Attaching the wheels was a little tricky; I used a toothpick for the axle, but the tin is only about 1/2" wide, so I had to cut the toothpick down and whittled the cut end to a point to fit in the hole in the wheels. Don't force the wheel on; they are pretty fragile. (Don't ask me how I know!) I did break the center out of one, but I ended up gluing the wheels to the tin anyway and put that one on the backside, so you can't really tell, except for the couple of missing spokes. Oops!  

 

And there they go, off to the circus parade! For a list of supplies, click here.