Mrs S is away from home at the moment. Leaving Steampunk-Shrunk Towers in the capable hands of Charles and Henry, she has traversed the country once again and is sojourning in the sweltering East.
To keep her occupied in spare moments, she has taken a sheaf of printed covers and pages to construct a plentiful supply of Grimoires – enough to tide us through the plethora of Steampunk-Shrunk stalls coming up this autumn and to cover the inevitable rise in demand at the SteampunkDollsHouse shop around Halloween.
Cutting and glueing the spell books together is the easy part. Each page then needs to be ‘distressed’ to give the appearance of great age.
This is a time-consuming process involving a variety of substances and techniques. Grimoires, after all, must expect to be exposed to all manner of strange environments and materials over the centuries.
Once suitably ancient in appearance, each little volume will be offered for sale. No two are completely alike.
As for the spells, charms and advice hidden within their pages – customers should take these with a large pinch of salt (along with essence of bat wing, scale of newt and a sprinkling of items digg’d in the dark).
Credit must be given to Betsy at www.etsy.com/shop/chocolaterabbit for the excellent covers and illustrations.
The ones I can clean up and get working are either sold as they are to automaton makers or turned into pretty clockwork twittering birds that sell as fast as I can make them. The ones that have seized up completely are taken to pieces, the parts being upcycled into our miniature gizmos and contraptions.
I hunted in an old box of bracelet charms and found a few dragonflies, a butterfly and a bee. These were painted in jewel colours and most were stuck to the casing. Another was threaded on to a length of copper wire and fixed to the wheel in the centre.
Constructing a pair of arms and hands from epoxy putty was relatively easy. One held the net and was molded to the flailing metal arm. The other held a diminutive magnifying glass, cobbled together with a few bits from the stash. It fitted neatly into the now empty housing from the bird whistle. A pair of small black sleeves and cuffs dressed the arms in a suitably formal fashion. My entomologist might lack all other body parts, but those he had were at least well attired.
The mechanism was housed in a small cardboard box, decorated with an assemblage of suitable images. A few coffee stirrers were sawn up to make a cover for the spring, so that the sharp, snapped steel edges would be safely covered.
Steampunk - Shrunk! 