Steampunk Watch Pendant Tutorial

I want to apologize for the scarcity and quality of the photos in this tutorial. The camera was acting up.

DIY Steampunk Watch Pendant

A necklace for modern steampunk fans. This necklace will blend into everyday outfits, only revealing its awesome steampunkyness upon closer glance. Who can resist watch parts and brown beads?

You will need:

• An old cheap watch
• Thick fabric (I used two layers of this faux leather stuff left over from a costume)
• Long, tubular beads
• Circular beads
• Strong glue (I used decopauge)
• Needle
• Thread
• 1 jump ring

Total cost: I used supplies on hand. Buying all the materials would cost around $5.

If you have to use a watch wrench to open the watch back, it looks like it will run you around $10. (I need to get one of these).

Step One: Take the watch apart. You will be using the movement, aka the little thing in the middle that makes the watch work.

Keep the rest of the watch for other projects!
 

I used the watch face { HERE }

And the watch case { HERE }

Also-- before doing anything with the movement, you might want to attack it with some pliers and needles. There are a bunch of small gears buried on the inside. If you gut the movement, those gears are worth keeping for future projects.

NOTE: Unless you have specialty tools, it is very difficult to take the watch apart. I lucked into a watch whose back came off very easily.

Right now, however, I have three watches sitting on my desk whose backs I can't remove. I actually broke my miniature flat-back screwdriver trying to take them apart. You may need to have special watch wrenches to get to the movement.

Step Two: Cut out a circle of the fabric. (I used two layers and glued them back-to-back.) 

Glue the movement on. (If the movement has holes in the plastic backing, sew it onto the fabric.)  

Thread the needle and begin to sew on the long, tubular beads.

Step Three: Continue to sew the long beads on. I thread three beads on before stitching into the fabric. If you sew tightly, this works wonderfully. Otherwise, stitch after each bead.

Step Four: Sew the circular beads onto the outside. Use a simple loop stitch. The beads will be very messy and will not line up. That is OK.

Step Five: Thread the needle through the holes of the circular beads. This fixes the messy outside beads problem.

Step Six: Sew a jumpring on. Your chain will go through here.

A view of the back. I am a messy sewer.

The finished project. Here you can see that I glued a small metal leaf onto the movement, right where the battery used to be.

Another one!

Steampunk

Steampunk.

Think Victiorian futuristic sci-fi.

Also think of steam engine power, watches, goggles, pearls, brass, steamboats, lace, airships, time travel machines... Yeah, steampunk is a little hard to explain.

(image source)

(image source)

(Jules Verne's books are considered some of the first steampunk stories.

Random fact: did you know that there was never any mention of a hot-air ballon in Around the World in 80 Days? Wonder why the illustrations always have it.)

The "official" definition of steampunk is "a sub-culture based on a genre of science-fiction set in Victorian times, when steam was the main source of machine power."

For a better idea, I'll steer you towards:

Wikipedia.     Etsy.     Artfire.    Clockwork.

(Please view at your own risk. Some people do take the "punk" part of steampunk seriously.)

(image source)

When I first told Mom about it ("Hey, Mom, I want to see if my brown skirt looks steampunky!"), all I got was a blank stare and then a cautious glance. I guess the "punk" part threw her for a loop.

I'm not a very "punky" person. :)

But I love Steampunk! I'm especially fond of the aesthetic. It's very Neo-Victorian. Sometimes it is also very Art Nouveau, which makes me doubly happy.
(For those who don't know, the Elvish look from the LotR movies was based on Art Nouveau styles. Hence the extra happiness. Because anything Elvish is Awesome.)

I always do a very bad job explaining what Steampunk is, and I've managed to get pretty weird looks from some of my friends and especially my parents' friends.

Oh, well. I'm not here to give a lecture on the origins and styles of Steampunk. I'm just here to say that I've been making some Steampunk jewelry and crafts!

All those watches and necklaces and nicknacks and gizmos on Etsy and Artfire really got my creative juices flowing.

Handcrafted Steampunk items are characterized by repurposed old jewelry, gears, brass, lace, and keys. And a million other things. (By the way... almost all Steampunk things are handcrafted. It's part of the charm, I think).

I've actually been making so many steampunk things (and more to come, when I can get the rest of these old watches torn apart) that I have an entire category in my Shoppe for it.

Here's some of my very first steampunk creations:

Mine, my own, my precious. Made from the watch face from one of my grandpa's old watches.

Trinkets! FOR SALE at my Shoppe!

The watch case from the watch face shown above, with a bajillion charms inside and out. FOR SALE at the Shoppe!

At the Shoppe

Yeah, the Snitch is more HP than steampunk. Oh, well.

An old watch I found in Grandma's basement. I fixed it, so she let me keep it. I have a whole blog post on it, { HERE }

And I will have a tutorial on the design above-- very, very soon!

Really random:

(image source)

For fans of G.K. Chesteron, like me, and for fans of steampunk, like me, check out the slightly weird and very creative book The Tripods Attack. Young Chesterton, myteries, and steam engines. For those IRL friends, I've got a copy if you want to borrow.

Antique Watch Jewelry

60 years old may be retro, not antique... but hey, it looks Victorian and it winds. I have never actually seen a little clock without a battery before. :) I love this little trinket, which I got from Grandma's basement. I made it work, so I got to keep it. I love how that works.

Here it is! At first I thought it was meant to be some kind of wonky pocketwatch, but Grandma said it was a clip to be worn on coat collars. (Interesting...) 

I wasn't fond of the clip part, so I removed it.

Here it is pictured ontop of Grandma's mantilla (head covering), back when Mass was said in Latin. She got it in Spain when she was a teen, and it is so beautiful!

I think it goes quite well with the pretty beads, don't you? You can see that I turned it into a necklace.

I had too much fun taking pictures, even though I'm using the old camera. Here the wtach is pictured on the skirt of a doll (one of American Girl's old "girls of different countries" collection).