This week I am featuring the mother and son teapot racers Kat and Draiden Cain and their creations, Mad Racer and Mad Racer #2.
These were the spookiest looking entries in the Oct. 17th races, but the skull theme was perfect for this pair of pirates.
The first of the two racers to try the course was Mad Racer, but it was not to be. This was one of those cars that just wouldn't budge on the rough grass. Kat Cain doesn't give up easily, though. She tried over and over to get her racer to move. This was her final attempt:
The grass was no problem for Mad Racer #2. This fast little car took off right away. The problem was that it seemed to have a mind of its own. It wanted to spin and do wheelies, but wasn't easy to steer. Small pirates don't have to play by all the rules and he cleverly finished the course just in the nick of time.
He ended up winning the medal for "Best Course Completion".
The Earl Grey is a teapot racer with a tea-pirate theme. It has a crew of tiny pirates, Captain Green, his daughter Jasmine, Mr. Baker, and Mr. Brewer.
This was the racer that inspired teapot racing in Florida.
After seeing videos of the teapot races in New Zealand on YouTube, 14 year old Blaze was very excited to make a teapot racer of his own. We built this one together and we were very happy with the way it turned out, but had no one to race against, so I started the Splendid Teapot Racing Florida Facebook page.
While I was busy making arrangements for a race and building the ramps, Blaze was practicing with his new racer, which included making a large fleet of magnolia leaf ships for it to battle.
Blaze bribing the judges at the Royal Renninger Races at Renningers Steampunk Industrial Show on Oct. 17, 2015.
With the character in the crow's nest, the Earl Grey is pretty tall, but it passed inspection.
This was one of the two "Rock Crawler" RC cars in the race and both did very well on the rough course.
Blaze became the first Splendid Teapot Racing Grand Champion in Florida.
Blaze is very proud of his trophy, which now resides on the headboard of his bed.
Today, I noticed that four new magnolia leaf ships have appeared in front of our house, so I think the pirates of the Earl Grey will soon have another armada to defeat.
Teapot racing is the latest craze to sweep through the steampunk community. It is a remote control car obstacle corse with a lot of creativity thrown in.
The racer must contain a teapot, but other decorative touches are up to the owner of each vehicle.
The sport was started in New Zealand, so let some New Zealanders show you how it's done:
I saw some videos of teapot racing on Facebook and showed them to Blaze, who was immediately excited. There didn't seem to be any question about it, we had to make a teapot racer.
A couple days of brainstorming later, we decided we wanted to be Tea Pirates.
We started out with the cheapest toy, tin tea set we could find.
Then, Blaze spray painted the entire set black.
We found a good deal on a remote control monster truck on Amazon. It was listed as used, but had in fact, never been taken out of it's box before. Only the box had been damaged.
Blaze was very excited to take it out for a test drive as soon as it arrived:
The body of the car turned out to be easy to remove, leaving a platform that was perfect for attaching the tea tray.
The little tin tea tray was not only the perfect size for this, but it was flimsy enough that putting holes in it for screws was no problem.
Blaze enjoyed doing the big stuff like spray painting and bolting on the tray, but then it was my turn to take over. I have fun doing the tiny detail work.
We named our ship (modified monster truck) the Earl Grey and decided it needed a crew.
The crew consists of Captain Green, his daughter, Jasmine, Mr. Brewer, and Mr. Baker.
The completed teapot racer:
They mostly raid ships belonging to the East India Tea Company.
While I was busy working on decorating the Earl Grey, a few days ago, Blaze was outside creating an armada of magnolia leaf ships that looked like they were about to attack the house. Destroying that fleet of leaf ships is what Blaze wanted to do as soon as I told him the teapot racer was complete and he could play with it.
The maiden voyage of the Earl Grey was not a gentle one, but nothing fell off, so I'm pleased.
Watching the teenager and I build our racer has caused my husband to become interested in building one of his own. He hasn't started work on one, yet, but he has a good idea, so this story may have a sequel in the future.
I have never done a plug for a kickstarter on this blog before, but this one looks particularly fun. It is an RPG game that includes two things that my children love, pirates and dragons.
Late last autumn, Blaze had a chance to dress up as a pirate and pose with a group of adult models, also dressed as pirates, for Mandam: Mythpunk Art Noir (the parents of the little girl I babysit).
The result of that modeling session, was the awesome cover art for this game.
A mother dragon discovers pirates stealing the gold she has used to encrust her eggs.
Cakebread and Walton, the company making this game, has already created the very successful RPG game, Airship Pirates (based on the world created by the steampunk band, Abney Park).
I haven't really talked like a pirate much today, but I did dress like one to go to school, and made Blaze a pirate themed lunch that included a hard-boiled egg skull and a cheese pirate on a bed of carrot coins.
My boss brought her set of pirate bendy dolls to school this week. I made these for her 3 or 4 years ago, but I never took any pictures of them. So, today's recess was an opportunity for a photo shoot.
Clicking on the label "Bendy Dolls" under this post or on the sidebar, will take you to many other bendy doll related posts, including patterns and instructions for making them.
The airship pinata started it's existence as a football shaped Mylar balloon,
but then it was encased in newspaper strips that were dipped into paper mache paste, made from equal parts white flour and water (this first bowl of paste was 3 cups of flour to 3 cups of water).
When the entire balloon, except for the neck, was covered in newspaper, it was left to dry and harden.
When it was completely hard and dry, the balloon was cut
and pulled out of its paper mache shell.
The tail fins and gondola were cut from cardboard and attached with small amounts of duct tape, just enough to hold them in place.
Paper mache was then used to cover all the cardboard and it was again left for a couple days to dry.
To add the tissue paper to the outside of the pinata, gold tissue paper was cut into strips along the fold-line of the paper. Each strip was then folded in half.
Then each folded strip was cut into fringe.
For smaller children, the tissue paper can be cut into squares by the parent and then have the child squish them up into balls before gluing them on the pinata. That was how we decorated most of the pinatas we made when my daughters were little.
It is time for one of those "do as I say, not as I do" moments. I did not decide to paint part of the pinata, instead of covering the whole thing in tissue paper, until after I had already added a lot of tissue paper. Better planning and doing all the painting first, would have made this easier.
Next, the fringe was glued in place, each strip over lapping the previous strip, using Elmers glue.
Final decorative touches were added, using images I found on the internet.
I'll give it a day or two to be sure it is really dry and then fill it with candy.
