Steampunk Beauty

I told you I had  the steampunk bug...

I cannot stop!

This time I went for a brush.

Kaely is a hairdresser and she works at a kind of alternative/comicon cosmetic company--I figured this would be perfect, or at the very least it provides a good excuse to punk up the steam!

I started with a brush from Dollar Tree.

After covering the bristles with tape, I spray painted the brush black with chalkboard paint.

I like chalkboard paint because it seems to accept the metallic acrylic paints and rubs better 

I cut gears out of very thin Dollar Tree craft foam.

I then spray painted them with the black chalkboard paint, followed by a coat of metallic craft paint like DecoArt.

Some of the gears are actually lock washers from the hardware store that I embossed.  They come in a variety of sizes and are very inexpensive.

 Gauges...do a Bing Image search for "printable steampunk gauges" and you will be happily rewarded!

I was very fortunate to find a brush that already had these fabulous scales on it, but I added sauder tacks with tacky glue applied with a toothpick.  After it was dry I painted with gold acrylic followed by a rub of black paint to age it and give it a more metal-like look.

I glued a nut onto the side and added a length of gold wire to create a tube for something...air?  

That's what the gauges are for...  to read the amount of air.  Ya.  Okay, that works ;)

Before passing this lovely on to Kaely I'm entering it in:

Sandee & Amelie's April Steampunk Challenge

Macabre Monday #186 (first timer)