Sunday, December 4, 2011

Steampunk Charms

I joined a steampunk charm swap in one of my Yahoo groups. I'm not entirely sure how to make steampunk charms, but I love charms. I was also trying to make them out of stuff I had. Not such a great idea. I understand steampunk to be metal, lace, keys, gears, stuff like that. Unfortunately, I don't have a drill, and I don't have a lot of metal elements. I do have a lot of bullet casings, but like I said no drill. So, here's what I came up with:
The metal tags I got at a garage sale last year. On the other side they say "Crawford County Iowa, a number and 1980 dog tax". The keys were brads that I snipped off the poky parts, glued them onto the tag, and then wrapped them with some coppe wire I found in a clock.
Personally, I think they're great. I asked the hostess if she thought they would work. She replied back "I think they are fine if that's how you would like them to be". That didn't sound too promising to me.


The last picture is my 2nd attempt, but I thought people might not think of them as steampunk, so I went the easy way out. The background is green leather, I just glued some images to them.


Here's my 2nd attempt:


I thought it would be cool to make a steampunk costume. I traced a dress form chipboard piece onto some green leather, freehanding the arms, and cut it out. I then added the black lace on the bottom, and the brass pieces to the arms (they're actually tiny clay beads cut in half). I then added the gold top piece (some packaging), and the 'belt' (some of that is copper colored German trim, some of it is silver trim colored with alcohol inks, and one piece is some copper colored pearls). I think they're really cute, but I was afraid people wouldn't see them as steampunk.




So, now I have 8 of those little dresses. Anyone fancy a trade?

2 comments:

Valerie Brincheck said...

I think the keys and the dresses are perfectly fine for steampunk. Everyone has a different notion of what steampunk should be and there are many styles out there to prove it. Personally I would have loved to get one of the little dresses regardless of the theme of the swap.

Girlsinthecraft said...

Yes, those dresses are adorable. And, I agree, steampunk interpretation varies greatly :)