Yes, Virginia, You CAN Steampunk Christmas

Season's Greetings, everyone!  The days are getting chillier and shorter, and thoughts are veering toward Christmas, even for those of us who strenuously avoid such thoughts til Halloween and Remembrance Day are over. 

This is a post far longer in the making than needed, for which I apologize.  When I had to create a steampunk display for our group's table at a Christmas Faire, I started the seeds of this article.  While creating the visual display of steampunk, I decided I should have a section fitting in with the Christmas theme, so I decided to investigate Steampunking Christmas.

A bit of Googling online (see below), and I found some great steampunked Christmas images, including the Steampunk Santa, by CyborgNecromancer (found here on deviantART), Ms. Koobickle's Steampunk Santa in Airship, from her post in 2009 at her blog, and some awesome embroidery designs on Urban Threads.  There were several others images I found as well, but these ones particularly caught my eye.

The Steampunk Christmas crafts I've encountered range from from Jennifer Dove's crafted Christmas card masterpiece (apparently made with stamps, gears, weights a lot, and it even ticks! details here), to Desert Rubble's wonderful polymer Steampunk Santas, on Deviantart here and here.

 

And of course, there are Christmas ornaments for a tree with a difference.  I quite like ValerianaSolaris' polymer ornament made from a glass ball and Fimo.

Jen, at Epbot, posted an article about steampunk Christmas ornaments, showing off some beauties she found, including this stunner below, which she names The Ultimate Steampunk Pine Cone of Craftiness (awesome!) and which a fellow crafter sent to her!  

In addition to these, there are many steampunk Christmas collages, gift tags, and Christmas trees bedecked with gears out there.  Then there are the many vintage images of Victorian & Edwardian Christmas cards with a very steampunk feel to them, as this small selection from my vintage image collection shows:

So, the whole point of this post is to say, Yes, Virginia, you CAN steampunk Christmas.  And from all the cool stuff I've seen online, we really, really should.

Steamed Decor - Coffee Table Display

This is just a brief note on steampunkish decorating - I thought I would post oddments of my attempts at steampunk decor here.

With my interest in the steampunk scene, I would love to embark on a steam-decor blitzkrieg of my apartment, but I lack several things: 1. Hardcore steampunk maker skills; 2. Money to hire other folks' awesome maker skills or expensive items, and 3. I don't own my place, so my hands are tied in many ways for what I *can* do.

However, I am a decent forager, and between keeping a sharp eye out for many years on eBay (before steampunk-connected stuff became outlandishly expensive), and having an excellent local source for nifty bits and pieces, I have accumulated some pretty cool oddments.  (Did I mention?  I'm also an appalling packrat.)  Now that I am working on tidying my very messy apartment (really, no, there is NOT half a dozen homeless people squatting in my abode, it just, um, looks like it), I am also trying to incorporate more steampunk details into my eclectically and erratically decorated place.

I thought, as I create little vignettes around my apartment, I will post them here, for your comment, entertainment, etcetera.

I decided to start with my display coffee table, which has a glass top and a drawer below.  The front 3 compartments of the drawer are visible under the glass top, and I decided that 2 of those compartments would make a fun display of some of my found steampunk objects - the 3rd, middle compartment is occupied by a portion of my vintage marble collection (which I wasn't about to move).

Photo of the cofffee table top

Objects found while scrounging, plus a rivet hammer

Assorted brass objects plus opera glasses

Closeup of a brass teapot and a small round brass box found while scavenging.

I'm interested in seeing what other people do for steampunk decorating.  Please feel free to post links to photos and tales of your own steampunk decor ideas, in comments to this blog. (I had hoped perhaps folks would be able to post photos directly in the comments, but I don't think that's an option.  But if you find a way around that, please do!)