Featured Teapot Racer: Kabootle

This was Rocky Sawyer's entry in Splendid Teapot Races on Oct. 21, 2017 at Renninger's Steampunk Industrial Show in Mount Dora, Florida. The little man inside the teapot, driving, is Kit and his racer is called Kabootle. The judges were so impressed by this design, that Rocky won the "Most Splendid Design" ribbon. 

His score may have been helped by the presentation of the bribes, as much as the bribes themselves, as he fished around in his sporran for the small bars of scented soaps.






Besides competing in the teapot races, Rocky also contributed his Alice in Wonderland themed obstacle course.



The clever design and amusing bribe could not help Kabootle on the race course, where it turned out to be woefully underpowered. Rocky did get full marks for showmanship, though.


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Featured Teapot Racer: The Mermaid's Tear

What do you do when you've built a beautiful teapot racer, only to discover that it doesn't have the power to make it through the obstacle course? You cheat.

Leann Drury arrived at Renninger's Steampunk Industrial Show with a plan to win the "Most Dastardly Driver" ribbon, the prize for most entertaining cheat. Her racer has a mermaid and ocean theme, so she came up with an alternate method of powering it, that fit perfect with that theme, a small, plastic fishing rod.

Between the creativity of the way she cheated, delicious cupcakes for the judges, and Leann's ability to entertain the crowd, she had no trouble winning her desired prize.


How to cheat with forethought and style:

The Steampunk Invasion of St. Augustine

Saturday, November 11, we joined the Cowford Steampunk Society and the Tampa Bay Steampunk Society for an outing to see the "Dressing Downton" exhibit at the Lightner Museum.







There was a very talented silhouette artist, just inside the front door of the Lightner museum.
This is my silhouette:



One of the other ladies from our group had her's done, as well:































Group pictures by the City Gate:









Because of Veterans Day, there was free admission to the Castillo de San Marcos, the old Spanish fort, so we went there after the group pictures.

















The Columbia Restaurant for dinner:

Featured Teapot Racer: "Eat Our Dust"

Today's featured teapot racer has special significance. Caitlin Karcher, the driver of the vehicle, posted about her Belle costume from "Beauty and the Beast" on her cosplay page, "Today is the one year anniversary of when I watched the new movie trailer a thousand times just to get a good glimpse of the yellow dress. I knew even then. "





As soon as I saw her walk into the SWFL Steampunk and Fantasy Expo, I offered her the Mrs. Potts and Chip racer for the Splendid Teapot Races that afternoon. "Eat Our Dust" is one of the spare racers that I bring along to teapot racing events, just incase someone, who has never heard of teapot racing before, really wants to try racing.

Since Caitlin had never tried this sport before, she came back a couple hours before the race to practice and that was when she discovered that "Eat Our Dust" was suffering from technical difficulties. It would no longer turn.



No amount of adjusting would make it turn.



Besides being an all-around lovely person, Caitlin was a good sport through all of this. When I handed her the song lyrics and explained about the "Most Dastardly Driver" ribbon for most entertaining cheat, she immediately started practicing the song and turned out to have a beautiful singing voice. My husband says he thinks all future teapot races should begin with her singing this song.







Since this race, Mrs. Potts and Chip have moved to a new remote control car chassis that can be steered.

The New Steampunk Christmas Wreath

My new wreath is made out of Dollar Tree finds and things I already had around the house.

I started with a wreath that was purchased from Dollar Tree last year. It looked kind of flat at first, but fluffed up nicely.



Fluffed before painting:



I sprayed mine with Old Copper spray paint.



Mixed metallic colors were added by tying pieces of dollar store tinsel to the bases of some of the branches. This also adds additional fullness to the wreath.



The mixed colored bells have been used as vase filler in past years, to support a pillar candle, but since I have a different candle display idea for this year, they are now part of this project.

I made 5 sets of wired bells, with 3 bells in each set.



This bright red train was purchased at the post-Christmas sales last year and received a coat of shiny black paint before being added to the wreath.



A blue-striped airship ornament was painted gold to balance out the other side of the wreath.

The bells and ribbon were wired to the wreath, everything else was attached with E6000 glue.