Hubby and I are into "Steampunk" stuff. Unfortunately we don't really have the finances to decorate our house in the style or do most of the things we'd like to do, but we do on occasion get the opportunity to dress up and have some fun with it.
 
So some of the costume things I've made.... My little hat  There's a story behind this hat.... Only a few days before Steampump.... Hubby made a cardboard hat from a cereal box, and I cut out felt to cover it... it took me all day to hand sew it all together (it's even hollow and lined inside, like a proper hat)... and I sewed all the feathers and everything on. Then at 3pm I went off for like 2 mins to pick my daughter up from school and I left the hat sitting on the table. I came home to find it on the floor, and all the feathers chewed off! BLOODY CAT! So then I had to drive to the local craft/fabric store to buy more feathers, unpick all the chewed feathers and sew the new ones back on. I was NOT impressed. Hubby's Gaiters. He wanted plain brown leather... Having a father who is a leatherworked comes in handy sometimes :) Especially when you can just walk into his workshop and go "dad, I need some scrap brown leather" and get it for free :D These were a surprise birthday present, so I was pretty pleased they actually fit, since all I had to go by was stealing one of his boots to take the pattern off... and I'd never made anything like this before. 
My Spats/gaiters/bootcoverythingies... I wanted something a bit more fancy... and now I never want to look at another rivet again! Also I made life harder on myself by wanting to have them knee high and wanting them laceup (meaning they have to fit exactly right, or else the lacing would be uneven (and we can't have that!) and because I wanted a "modesty panel" behind the lacing, which ended up being really annoying to have to account for when making the pattern as I didn't want to have a join... if I was doing it again, I'd just glue/sew/rivet the panel on after they were made! but live and learn. They also ended up a bit more country&western than I'd planned... but I love them anyway. (The materials for these were also free, thanks dad! :D) I originally made some leather arm bands (bracers), skirt hikes and a choker necklace... but the necklace didn't look good on my podgy neck, and I decided the bracers were a bit too masculine for me, even after I added a couple of embelishments... and they take forever to laceup... so I don't wear them anymore. but the skirt hikes work brilliantly! What's a skirt hike you might ask.. it hooks around a belt and you use it to jam a bit of your skirt into, to keep it "hiked up"... so that you can expose a bit of leg, or in my case a bit of frilly bloomer and my cool leather boot covers.   I swear the centre filigree thing is centered within the brass ring properly, but the angle of the photo means it looks like it's not. But it is hard to photograph your own arm :) Not especially Steampunk... but inspired by... was the cake I made Hubby for his birthday, as part of a sort of theme, since I'd made the gaiters and given him a bunch of LEGO stuff so he could make his own steampunk airship type thing... which rather than give him in a box of jumped pieces, I built (a pretty dodgy) one so he could have something more interesting than a box of bricks. 
 You can't see but there are engine things attached under (near the wheels) that provide lift... kinda (hey, anything is possible right!) The plan was for it to have a balloon above, but I could't find LEGO to make it, so I couldn't do it.  Purple swirly image © Mirabavutti | Dreamstime.com |