Oh my I LOVE LOVE LOVE how my little crate train turned out. I got my inspiration from The Keeper of the Cheerios blog post. I did a few thing differently to make it my own. I figured I have about $100 in just the materials. So worth it though.
I didn't take step by step photos. You can pretty much follow her video and then just change it up a bit for your style. I tried to use items that I had on hand to keep the cost down a bit.
I had gotten some crates from Walmart and from Michaels. I like the style better with the ones from Michaels but the Walmart ones are built better. Both were right at $10 each.
For the wheels I went to the Dollar Tree and bought 16 of cookie tins. Painted the lids white (it took about 4 coats). In the video it shows hand painting the swirls on the wheels. I cannot hand paint anything so..... I have a Cricut so I cut them out with 631 vinyl and applied them.
Used a piece of PVC pipe for the smoke stack. The base is a canning lid. I useed the E6000 glue to hold it in place.
Of course I had to make some little signs to dress it up a bit. I had some miniature tree ornaments that I used for a little bling on the signs and the front of the train engine.
Santa and Rudolph are made from vinyl and put inside a 4x4 picture frame from Walmart. I velcroed these on in case I need to remove them for replacement one day.
This project took a little more time then this "impatient crafter" cares to put into a project. But I really like how it turned out.