My steampunk goggles
let me show you them!
What I started with: an old pair of shoes that Frolic hasn't worn in at least five years, made out of heavy-grade leather. I separated the lining (the yucky-looking white/brown stuff still attached to the shoe) from the leather (seen here in pieces) and washed the leather very well. (Even though the leather itself has never touched sweaty feet because the shoes had thick lining, it HAS seen outdoor use.) Frolic was going to throw the shoes away because they're uncomfortable and old, but I realized that they could be used for my goggles. (I'd been trying to figure out where to find scrap thick leather. I have thin leather, but no thick leather.)
The eyepieces are 2" caps intended for use on plumbing pipes. Found these at Home Depot for $0.80 apiece. If you look at the cap on the right (which is upside-down) you can see where's a little lip all around the inner edge. This is good because it's where we attach the lenses.
The lenses were made from the clear plastic packaging. You could use any kind of clear plastic packaging (soda bottles, pre-made-salad containers, etc.) but I happened to have this around from when I'd made Christmas-themed muffins earlier in the week (it had held Xmas-printed paper muffin cups), so this is what I used. I just cut circles that would fit inside my caps and then hot-glued them to the inside of the lip on the caps.
So here we go! Our caps (which now have lenses), a paper pattern (based on this tutorial here), the two pieces of the headband cut from the fronts/tongues of the shoes, and plain leather strips and hardware cut from the sides of the shoes. Also a cutting board and (not pictured) box cutter, and (also not pictured, other than a tiny piece in the middle of the photo) brown leather cut from the underside of the shoe tongue.
The underside of the headband, all hot-glued together. Brown leather has been used both for reinforcement and for aethestic appeal on the top of the headband (it looks ugly on the underside, but looks nice on top).
As I didn't have enough hardware strips to go all the way around the eyepieces, I chose to put one 3-ring hardware strip on either side of each eyepiece, and fill in the spaces between with plain leather. I hotglued them on.
I then sewed the eyepieces to the headband (and oh, that SUCKED - I gave up on using a thimble and had to use pliers to make the needle go through two pieces of thick leather) with a heavy-duty needle and black-colored upholstery thread, which is thicker/stronger than normal sewing thread. After that I hotglued black felt to both the inner curve of the eyepieces and also to the underside of the headband, so just in case I actually put them on as goggles, there will be soft felt against the skin around my eyes rather than leather and hot glue drips, LOL.
The next part involved wrapping two keychain-rings with brass wire (since plain steel keychain wouldn't have been quite the appearance I was going for), sewing the ends of the headband to the rings, then running a piece of black 1"-wide elastic from ring to ring (that's the part that goes around the back of my head).
Anyway, I'm quite pleased with how they came out, especially considering what I started with!
What I started with: an old pair of shoes that Frolic hasn't worn in at least five years, made out of heavy-grade leather. I separated the lining (the yucky-looking white/brown stuff still attached to the shoe) from the leather (seen here in pieces) and washed the leather very well. (Even though the leather itself has never touched sweaty feet because the shoes had thick lining, it HAS seen outdoor use.) Frolic was going to throw the shoes away because they're uncomfortable and old, but I realized that they could be used for my goggles. (I'd been trying to figure out where to find scrap thick leather. I have thin leather, but no thick leather.)
The eyepieces are 2" caps intended for use on plumbing pipes. Found these at Home Depot for $0.80 apiece. If you look at the cap on the right (which is upside-down) you can see where's a little lip all around the inner edge. This is good because it's where we attach the lenses.
The lenses were made from the clear plastic packaging. You could use any kind of clear plastic packaging (soda bottles, pre-made-salad containers, etc.) but I happened to have this around from when I'd made Christmas-themed muffins earlier in the week (it had held Xmas-printed paper muffin cups), so this is what I used. I just cut circles that would fit inside my caps and then hot-glued them to the inside of the lip on the caps.
So here we go! Our caps (which now have lenses), a paper pattern (based on this tutorial here), the two pieces of the headband cut from the fronts/tongues of the shoes, and plain leather strips and hardware cut from the sides of the shoes. Also a cutting board and (not pictured) box cutter, and (also not pictured, other than a tiny piece in the middle of the photo) brown leather cut from the underside of the shoe tongue.
The underside of the headband, all hot-glued together. Brown leather has been used both for reinforcement and for aethestic appeal on the top of the headband (it looks ugly on the underside, but looks nice on top).
As I didn't have enough hardware strips to go all the way around the eyepieces, I chose to put one 3-ring hardware strip on either side of each eyepiece, and fill in the spaces between with plain leather. I hotglued them on.
I then sewed the eyepieces to the headband (and oh, that SUCKED - I gave up on using a thimble and had to use pliers to make the needle go through two pieces of thick leather) with a heavy-duty needle and black-colored upholstery thread, which is thicker/stronger than normal sewing thread. After that I hotglued black felt to both the inner curve of the eyepieces and also to the underside of the headband, so just in case I actually put them on as goggles, there will be soft felt against the skin around my eyes rather than leather and hot glue drips, LOL.
The next part involved wrapping two keychain-rings with brass wire (since plain steel keychain wouldn't have been quite the appearance I was going for), sewing the ends of the headband to the rings, then running a piece of black 1"-wide elastic from ring to ring (that's the part that goes around the back of my head).
Anyway, I'm quite pleased with how they came out, especially considering what I started with!