Week 28, vacuum-formed keys and gears

I don't remember if painting them was supposed to be part of the Thing too, but it seems like it should have been.  Therefore, for your viewing pleasure:

However, these were not photographed until the next Thursday, which makes this a FAILURE. . . I think?

Week 27, dressed to the elevens

Factors working against me:  It had to be done (and dry!) in time to wear to the Sac Steam Ball on Thursday.  I had to purchase new nail polish with which to paint the gears because I couldn't find my big bag of them (still can't).
Factors working for me: I probably ended up with a better color-match this way.
At this point I would like to take the opportunity to tell you what exactly I am talking about.  As I was trying to decide what to wear to the Sac Steam Ball, it occurred to me that I had a pair of opera-length gloves that I really never wear because they're too flashy for everyday wear, even for me.  So I planned my outfit around them.  As it happens, my brother had recently given me a hat he didn't want anymore which had a purple band that went with other things I was wearing.  I had intended to sew in a lining to make it a ladies' hat anyway, and I had some of the same fabric I used for the gloves left.  Then I painted one of the vacuum-formed gears I was working with to match and added some feathers (I bought a mixed bag at the craft store, which turned out to have more colors than I had expected).
Results:

 

Bonus: I also made a matching pin to wear at my throat.

Week 26, hair cuff

That whole keeping track and blogging more often thing worked out great.

Week 39 (July 18-24): No idea
Week 40 (July 25-31): Knit gauntlets
Week 41 (Aug. 1-7): More knit gauntlets
Week 42 (Aug. 8-14): Tiniest Apple-Picking Top Hat
Week 43 (Aug. 15-21): No idea
Week 44 (Aug. 22-28): No idea
Week 45 (Aug. 29-Sep. 4): Earrings for Lee

Hopefully, when I am cleaning I will come across the projects I've forgotten and be able to fill in the blanks.  I do at least have an excuse for the ones in August, which is that I didn't have my camera, so there are no photos to remind me.

Week 47, I'm sick of this format

I was going to make a miniature version of last week's hat with what was left of the Timtex, but as often happens late in the week I realized that I needed something else.  In this case, we were hosting a swap meet for the Sacramento Steampunk Society and needed a sign to put on the fence so people could find the place.  I was just going to print up a larger version of our regular meeting sign (which was my Steampunk Thing of the Week way back on week 7), but the printer refused to cooperate.  So I traced it from the computer screen.

Five sheets of paper held together with double-stick tape (because that's all I could find).
I knew those little tiny lines wouldn't be visible from a distance, so I wasn't done yet.  I wanted to color it with markers, but what I found were old, dead markers, gel pens (which would have taken forever), crayons, and a set of oil pastels.  So I decided to try the pastels.

Even using techniques to speed it up (mainly the one called "scribbling"), I still finished at about 6:20 on Thursday, which was ten minutes before the event was supposed to start and after people had started arriving.  Unfortunately, the sun went down not too long after that, and the street lamp in front of our house works only intermittently, so I'm not sure it was any help to anyone.  However, now that it's made it can be used for other events, and I think I'll clip a light to the fence to make it more visible.

Week 46

Factors working against me: Time.  I also was working with a type of material I'd never used before (Timtex), so I didn't know how well it would work.

Factors working for me: I knew what I wanted to make: a hat to wear on the weekend.  But first I went internet shopping for Edwardian blouses and brown leather waist cinchers.  I couldn't find anything that looked how I wanted, so I decided to make a simple instant steampunk waist cincher.
Results:  It's a rectangle with belt loops.

Just add belts.

After wearing it on the Sacramento Steampunk Society/ Great Basin Costume Society steam train excursion, I realized the belts all tend to slide together, bunching up the fabric, so I'm going to add some boning.
Bonus:  I ended up finishing the hat I originally wanted to make for this week's Thing in the truck on the way to Carson City Saturday night.  I still want to add flowers, but I wore it as-is so I'd say it counts.

Week 38, great and not-so-great

Factors working against me: As usual, I left things until late, which means I did the entirety of this week's Thing Saturday night.
Factors working for me: The next day was the Sacramento Steampunk Society's trip to the zoo.  As part of the event we had planned to have water gun duels in the park, so it was obvious what I needed to make.
Results: Here are the guns I started out with:

They were a pair of matching pistols once, although the orange one lost its trigger guard at some point.  The first thing I had to do was use a dab of caulk to seal a hole where it had broken off that opened directly into the water chamber (which is basically the whole gun).  Then I spray-painted them with a base coat.  The green one became flat black and the orange one shiny chrome.

Here is the black gun completed:

I shined it up with a little silver Rub'n'Buff, copper acrylic paint, 3D stickers from the scrapbooking section at Michael's, and a couple small bits of a clock I took apart a while back.  I also used some paint thinner on a Q-tip to restore a small section of the gun to translucent green, which gives it a little of a futuristic feel in contrast to the antiqued look of the rest of it.  A word of warning: I have found that acrylic paints are not the best for squirt guns, as they tend to soften up with water and may rub off.  In this case, I temporarily lost one of the stickers placed on top of the copper paint.  I will look for something to seal it with before I take this gun to any more events.
Here's how the other one came out:

Somewhat less satisfactory, to the point I'm not sure I should count it as a bonus Thing (although I did take it to the zoo like this).  I could tell pretty early on that I was going to want to re-do most of this gun at a later time.  I wanted it to complement the other gun, with a slight Western feel, but with a color scheme that revolved around pearls.  However, the placement of the pearls is less than ideal (I really only put them there to cover up the "Made in China", which can be sanded off).  I also attempted to paint on faux mother-of-pearl inlay, but the color is off.  Not to mention the clock parts at the back/top of the gun are held on with Scotch tape, since superglue wasn't working.  Another thing I wanted to do with it, but didn't have time for, was to put sandy-colored paint in the cracks which would hopefully be evocative of desert mud, make it less shiny, and pull in the orange cameos (which are actually more scrapbooking stickers) to the overall color scheme of the gun.