How To Make Steampunk Jewelry

I'm sure you've seen steampunk jewelry so far, but you might not know that this is how it's called. It is a style of jewelry that incorporates vintage watch parts, small gadgets, gears, cogs, old fashioned keys, antique buttons, various hardware bits and lots of gadget parts in interesting wearable pieces that can become nothing short of art.

There is a good list of what components you can add when making your steampunk jewelry. I bet many of these are already in your home, all you need is to find them around the house. Or in the hardware store.

Your main tools:

• a pair of pliers
• hot glue or craft glue
• scissors
• resin
• jewelry parts including findings, cuff links, etc

Items with a vintage / Edwardian style

• chains
• cameos
• antique and vintage buttons
• mini photo frames
• lace, ribbon
• velvet
• corset closures
• filigree elements
• lockets
• tiny or miniature bottles

Industrial and tech style elements with a hint of sci-fi

• old fashioned watch parts
• clock hands
• antique compass elements
• springs, coils of brass, copper and other metal
• interesting vintage gadgets
• moving parts
• antique typwriter keys
• skeleton keys

One place I found many vintage style objects that lend themselves beautifully to make steampunk jewelry is at garage sales. You'd be surprised just what kind of things people no longer need that will be perfect for your jewelry making purposes.

If you don't have easy access to these kinds of things, you can find many of these parts online as well - I prefer Amazon because they are the most reliable and trustworthy around.

The most popular material for steampunk jewelry is brass and antiqued copper. For the material to make it truly look antique, you need to oxidize it. There are several ways to give this antique patina before you make it into a finished piece and here are a few of them explained.

• If you have a simple creme brulee kitchen torch, take your brass and your copper elements (make sure you don't have any items nearby that could catch fire, burn or get destroyed by the torch) and start heaving the pieces with the flame.
  
  After a few minutes the elements will become very dark in color. You can play with the torch by holding the flame on various parts of the pieces more than on other pieces for some interesting visual effects. Once the piece is dark enough, take some steel wool (I use the grade 0, the thinnest possible) and polish the metal so the rising surfaces will change lightly color and the piece ends up looking truly vintage.

• Another way to add patina to the piece is to put it into a solution of vinegar and salt (the video tutorial on this is below, it's very cool!)
   
• Liver of Sulphur (also called LOS by jewelry artists) is a great way and a tiny piece goes a long way. But beware - it stinks really bad like rotten eggs! You can find LOS either as liqud solution, or as hard piece from which you can chop off a tiny bit (the size of a bean). First clean your piece of grease or other dirt. Then mix a bean size LOS to hot, but not boiling water.
  
  Let the piece dissolve and then add your brass or copper (can also be used on sterling silver) in it. You can leave it for a few minutes in the solution until it changes color. Once it's done, use the steel wool to polish it for extra effect.

There are several other ways to do it involving boiled eggs, for example, and although this is the method I started out with a few years ago, I never really got the results I actually wanted. For me liver of sulphur worked always the best.