Steampunk here we come!

I just had to make a pair of ear-rings today - and no, I wasn't procrastinating about the Art History essay that was due a few weeks ago ( I was kindly granted an extension but this essay is proving illusive) - more just a need to physically manifest the idea that has been rattling around in my brain taking up space. Truly. I have made them for a young friend and was going for a steampunk look. Strictly speaking, these fall well short of "real"steampunk but I think my friend will like them none the less. The genre is explained here. Sort of. I pulled apart a clock with the intention of using all the nifty cogs but alas - they were all plastic! I have improvised and made my own cog lookalikes from bits and pieces I had. Yay for lateral thinking because today was the day to make these or they may never have materialised!

I used copper and brass that I bashed about a bit and some sterling rings and a wee bit of recycled tray. I don't have any wire at the moment so I cheated and used ready-made hooks. I fashioned the cog-like bits by rivetting some bits together and the ring they hang from was made using a technique I learned from Stephanie Lees' book "Semi-Precious Salvage".

We are mad "Firefly" fans in this household and for some reason I was thinking of Captain Mal when I made these ... that is probably a bit sad for a woman my age (sigh)

I am adding these pics despite their poor quality to try and show the 3 dimensional effect I was trying to create.

Hope you can get the idea from that!

And here is a close-up of my cog look-alike.