The GREATEST Show on Earth!

Circus World in Baraboo, Wisconsin was an unexpected delight on our 30th wedding anniversary trip to (our honeymoon destination) the Wisconsin Dells.  The restored Circus Wagons are the most spectacular rainbow of colors and wonderment!  The museum is on the campus of the former summer home for Ringling Brothers Circus and is an absolute feast for the eyes!

Each circus wagon was restored to its original splendor and down to the wheels were an unbelievable explosion of colors!

After reading your comments about the Circus tags I had to include a few pix, because you really do have to see it to believe it!

 I  want to tell you about a book called The Great Circus Fire.  It's a sad account of a catastrophe that occurred in a Big Top tent in the 1940's.  You can find it here: 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Circus-Fire-True-Story/dp/0385496842

I listen to books on my commute  and  this story is so amazing that there were times that I sat in the car not wanting to stop listening when I got home!  There are compelling stories of heroism and sorrow.

I hope that you will think fondly of your circus days and consider a little circus craft of your own or better still, plan a road trip to Wisconsin to see the beautiful circus sites for yourself!

When the Circus Came to Town

"Back in the day" (which is how my children refer to anything before 2000), there didn't used to be colored television.  There didn't used to be colored photography either and if the circus train came to town, people came from far and wide to watch the parade of beautiful wagons and costumed folk.  

We went to Baraboo, Wisconsin to see the Ringling Brothers Circus Museum and the restored wagons literally took my breath away.  I can only imagine the pandemonium when those wagons pulled through the streets and children saw the colors and the phenomenal carvings and heard the Calliope playing!   I come from the generation that thought Silly Putty was the coolest thing ever so I know that what kids expect from entertainment now is a much higher standard.  But the circus coming to town had have been the highlight of childhood in the '30's and '40's,  like right up there with Christmas!

With the sites of the museum in mind, I created these tags.

Just like Elizabeth at Creativebreathing.blogspot.com teaches, I use the 'sandwich' method to layer the tag papers.  Start out with your pattern cut out of a cereal or lightweight cardboard box, layer scrapbook paper on the front and the back.  I usually date the back for tags I keep, I decorate ones that are going to be gifted.  The cereal box layer keeps the tags from bending when they are hung.

I carry the color scheme on to the next tag, see how the sheet music under the Ringmaster is on the border of the elephant's Show Time tag?  

All of the graphics were found in Mary Engelbreit's calendar, I save every graphic in file folders on my desk for future projects.  I even cut her page borders to use on my tags, I love polka dots!

I cut  my own trims because if I didn't I'd be in the poor house after a trip to Archivers! I love to garnish the paper crafts, I just can't afford to pay the piper!  

This one reminds me of the pony rides in the park when I was a little girl.  

Popcorn is a staple at our house, as in we must have bread, milk and popcorn!  I cut the popcorn bag out of scrap paper because this bear actually had his arm around something else that I had to cut out of the graphic.  The clown on the 'Say Cheese' tag had someone else in front of him too, I just hid half of him behind the curtain!

Now I Know my ABC's

Click the picture for close ups

With the faux paint treatment in my craft room I like using bright and cheery colors in my wall art.  Finding a pair of vintage children's alphabet books in bad shape, I decided to make a little tag banner.  I used the red, turquoise and yellow color scheme and repeated the papers through the series as borders or accents.

Despite the fact that the illustrations came from two different books, the graphics are so cute and colorful that it didn't matter that there were different illustrators!  I incorporated a song my Little Grampa used to sing me in the letter G tag.  "There was a man named Dandelion, had three red shirts on his clothesline.  He bought a goat and tied him hard, right by the neck, in his back yard."  Then next verse of the song had the goat coughing up the shirt to flag the train, see the red shirt?  

The old barn window from the Gold Rush Days Flea Market is a frame for a vintage circus poster; it came from the summer headquarters for the Ringling Brothers Circus in Baraboo, Wisconsin.  I'll tell the circus tale in the next post, it was such a fun place to be!  We revisited our Honeymoon destination on our 30th anniversary, Baraboo is just a short distance from The Wisconsin Dells.  

 

This set of tags are hung on vintage measuring tapes.  The tiny clothes pins made of plastic are vintage dolly clothes pins, the pinching ones were from JoAnn and are a perfect way to hang tags.  

Next time won't you sing with me...