Make your very own miniature vintage ferris wheel complete with free swinging gondolas and customize it with your favorite festive carnival color scheme!
Cut out all your parts and get them laid out. I used paper templating at first to make sure everything fit together - but you can skip this step if you'd like since I already did it! To make painting faster, you can also cut the pieces out of pre-painted wood.
Assemble your gondolas. These are slightly off-square, so make sure that your walls line up. The gondolas have a vertical bar that runs through between the two windows - this makes orienting them easy. To assemble the gondola, glue the two roofs together, with the flat sides touching. Then, take your two slatted walls with the posts and line them into the holes. While that is at a 90 degree angle, insert your floor, and finally the last two walls. I found it much easier to paint all of these pieces before assembling eventually - but this picture is bare wood. I just used super glue to attach.
This is technically optional, but paint all of your pieces before assembling them. I used a combination of cutting out pre-painted pieces and painting them afterwards. For the wheel itself, I used white paint mixed with water to create a white wash, so as to not destroy the engraving. For the stars, I used a thin liner brush. Finish everything with spray clear coat.
Attach feet to your frame and secure them with a small brass rod, super glue, and two metal decals.
Put your small wheel on a rod and put 6 washers on each side, twisting the rod slightly to expand the hole and ensure a tight fit. Paint the whole thing with superglue to create a tight center support. Add in your big wheels, and then add in 2 more washers for space. Thread the holes with cut brass rods, resting just at the point of the wheel hole, and secure each one with a dot of superglue and a metal nail decal on each side.
Thread a Gondola onto a rod and attach the outer ring, just as before. Make sure they alternate colors and all face the same direction. Secure with glue and accents. Assemble your frame, attaching completed wheel to frame and securing with a washer on the outside. Secure frame by adding two metal rods in holes near bottom, and secure with superglue and accents. Make sure you can spin the wheel throughout.
Assemble your base, and add any missing accents and touch up any missing paint. To make my base extra thick, I used scrap pieces of 4x4 wood to beef it up stacking them 4 high to create an extra thick platform out of stuff I would have thrown away. Add metal accents wherever needed, and a rhinestone in the middle of the wheel. Finally, once it's all secure, glue your wheel the the base using the feet you made and a dot of glue.
You're now the owner of a tiny little ferris wheel that you can spin and show off to all your friends who are probably jealous they're not ants and can't take a ride on your awesome ferris wheel.