Posted by Christa on March 6th, 2010
I’ve decided to give this place a completely new look and during this weekend I will take a look around to see if I can find a good plugin that will turn this into a small and easy maintained store. And easy to use from the front end too of course. The more simplified, the better.
Also, most of the items in the categories here are already sold. The only reason I’m keeping the images in the galleries is for commission purpose. Although I never make two items identical, mainly because it’s not possible when you’re working with recycled material, a bit of inspiration is never wrong.
And I really need to get my hands on some old watches again 
Preferably of the older kind and of pocket size if possible 
In any case, this change in here is not just for visual reasons. I wanted something that will be easier to organize once I’ve got that store in place.
Posted by Christa on February 25th, 2010
This blog and store kind of stalled since we got the business up and running, and sadly to say, it’s not a business dealing with Steampunk. That’s the main reason why it’s so quite in here.
Tonight I’ve updated both the blog itself and the store here, which means that now absolutely nothing works :p The store is temporarily disabled until I configured it and activated everything. But after that any orders should be possible to make in the same way as you order anything else online. I still think it’s overkill to set up a complete e-commerce for this since what I’ve got for sale is so limited.
Any shipping rates that are visible at this time are not valid. They are only in your imagination and needs to be corrected. Which is what I will do during the upcoming weekend. I will post here again as soon as everything is set up and ready to go
My bits, cogs, screws and springs are asleep in their plastic boxes for now. I haven’t made anything new for months, but I’m hoping I will get a chance to bring it all back into daylight again soon
Until then, when at you see at the front page is what is available for sale.
Posted by Christa on September 26th, 2009
It’s been a while since HP launched these handheld PC’s now and I’ve had this one since 2004. During the past few years it’s been collecting dust in a cupboard together with other gadgets that no one uses any more. A while back I brought it out again since it’s handy to take to meetings and other events when you need to make notes etc.
But it didn’t look like this only a couple of weeks ago of course. I doubt that any brand will ever sell their product Steampunked and ready :p
So I decided to make it match my cellphone. The color is the same (haven’t used the copper foil since I realized that it blocked the signal from and to the cellphone), the 4 buttons at the bottom is the same as those I used on the keypad on the cellphone and I’ve used watch faces for the multifunction button in the middle, just as I did on the cellphone as well.
The on/off button is a winder for a wristwatch and the decoration on the cradle is a mix of gears and what holds the springs in pocket watches.
Under the screen there’s a piece of a thin spring attached.
It would have been easy to go wild with the cradle since there’s a lot of space to cover…at least compared to the iPaq itself. But sometimes less is more, as they say.
And I think this is ready. I had to cover the touch screen while I did this since it’s very sensitive and not a place where you want to end up finding paint or glue when you’re done. That screen is rather scratched as it is, but I didn’t make it worse. Besides, since the material in that screen is different from the display on the cellphone, I can’t polish it and get rid of scratches in the same way. So those I’m stuck with, sadly to say.
But I’ll use it for as long as it works
Oh and if you want to see what it looks like in original, there’s a picture here. Surprisingly enough, HP are still selling these.
Posted by Christa on September 26th, 2009
I never had any solution to the problem with the plugins here and why one of them stopped working after the latest upgrade, so I’ve had to tweak things around today for the gallery to work at least.
This means that the store still doesn’t work, and the only replacement I can offer right now is that you get in touch with me using the contact form above if there’s anything you want to buy. What is available for sale can be found under the “Home” links above.
Prices do show if you hover over the images in that gallery, but they will also show at the bottom of the image if you click on it to see a bigger size.
I’m sorry about this mess, but since I’ve used two different plugins that have worked together perfectly in the past, I haven’t got a clue where things went wrong. The gallery plugin caused it, I know that much, but I haven’t got a clue how to solve it.
So at least for now this is the solution.
Have a great weekend
Posted by Christa on September 23rd, 2009
The store here is temporarily out of order due to me upgrading a plugin :p
So I guess you could say that we’re closed. At least for the moment.
I’m hoping this will be resolved soon and I’m waiting for assistance from WP.org since I’m using Wordpress for this set up. It’s most likely me who broke something, but I will still need a bit of help to fix it since I haven’t done anything intentionally. And since I haven’t got a clue why the errors in the gallery and the store shows.
So this place will be back as soon as this is fixed
In the meantime, this blog will still be here.
Posted by Christa on September 15th, 2009
Today I finally got the petite ball chain in the mailbox Which means that after we got back from town I’ve been gluing.
Unfortunately, there was no other way to do this. Since the surface underneath is still plastic it would have been a disaster to try anything else, so I had to use super glue.
And the base is painted with enamel pain in an antique golden shade. There are several layers since the plastic was black, and I believe that I will have to add some more paint in the future since it will get scratched and most likely come off on the edges etc. But the plastic underneath is sanded and clean, so other than that there was no problem to get the paint to stay.
The surface is a bit rough since I had to sand the plastic, but if I wanted a smooth shiny phone that looked perfect, I could buy one :p
While I was sanding the plastic I happened to scratch the display badly. Or so I thought. When I was done attaching the ball chain around the display I used a bit of Brass polish on some cotton and actually managed to get rid of the scratches Never thought that would work, but I guess the glass in the display is a bit softer than regular glass. And that Brass polish contains some kind of mineral powder which probably did the trick.
Later on I might add something around the phone too, on the edges…but for now I’ve decided to leave it this way. Since it still works and everything :p
When it comes to the “design” I wanted to keep it feminine, but still not girlie…if that makes any sense? I’m not much for the pink and flowery stuff myself and since this is my own phone I’d like to keep it as non-flowery and anti-pink as I can :p
Besides, this phone is so slimmed that it’s not easy to add anything that will make it look less slimmed…or less feminine :p Not sure if a cell phone can be feminine, but there you go anyway.
If I’ll do it again?
Hm…well, I guess if someone handed over a similar model it’s not impossible. However, most people these days tend to get an iPhone or similar if they buy a new one. And an iPhone would probably be more than a challenge :p Way too sensitive to fiddle with like this.
But it was fun and I can assure you that there’s only one of these around :p If I would ever forget it anywhere it’s obvious who it belongs to
Posted by Christa on September 4th, 2009
It’s taken a while to figure out how to replace that piece of metal that I dressed my cellphone with the other day :p And in the end I had to use enamel paint for the base.
What you see in this picture is not much….just a teaser really. I’m not done yet and I want to save it until it’s ready. I’m expecting some more stuff in the mail that I need to finish this project, so until then this is what I’ve got.
What’s showing here is the on/off button at the top of the picture, the watch face is the selector (up, down, right, left) and the big button at the bottom of the picture is the answering button :p Below that the first row is 1, 2 and 3 buttons. The “uneven” button in the middle below that row is number 5. A lot of the number buttons are of the same kind, however, for the sake of finding the buttons fast I’ve used something else for number 5 and zero (which is not in this picture).
It’ll make more sense when it’s all done I hope :p
More when it’s closer to finished
Posted by Christa on September 2nd, 2009
I had the copper foil in the mail this morning, so when I was done with breakfast I began to dress up my cell phone.
And later I also found out how stupid I am :p
The phone became very shiny and perdy…however, it also became completely useless :pp
And I did this in spite of being told yesterday that the metal would probably disturb the signal. But did I listen? Noooo….I rarely do. Have to try and see for myself.
So now I’ve spent the past hour or so removing glue from the plastic. Super glue :p
The foil was nice though. Very thin and close to thicker tin foil, but stronger. It just won’t work on a cell phone :pp
After I removed it I turned the phone back on again and it worked. So it was the foil that made the difference. But…this means that I will just have to come up with something else…not sure what yet, but I’m not giving up. Whatever it is it can’t be too thick since it will make for a real challenge to close the lid in the back, and I would like to be able to open it up again in case it’s needed. So we’ll see.
What I do know is that it can’t look the way it does right now. I had to literally sand the glue down, which means that the plastic is far away from smooth and shiny the way it used to be. So no way back now.
I might be back with more mistakes…who knows :p
Posted by Christa on September 1st, 2009
When we came to B&Q yesterday to get those hex key set that I needed to open my cell phone, the smallest key was too big. No surprise there.
However, in one of the stalls I found a big set of keys like that with sizes that went way down on the scale…and a lot cheaper as well. When we came home I tried the two smallest keys in that set, and one was too big while the other was way too small 
Besides, screws on cell phones is added by a machine to start with, which means that they’re near to impossible to open by hand. And with a hex key that is barely a millimeter thick, it’s doomed to fail. So I will have to try and modify it without taking it apart as it seems right now.
I did find some copper foil, but I had to buy it online. No craft stores open yesterday since it was bank holiday. So I’m not sure when I’ll get that foil. But hopefully shortly after they charged my card :p
So I’m still waiting for something, as usual.
I did however find some new bits and pieces for my multi-tool yesterday. Needed some new basic bits that are needed so I can use it to saw and polish again So I did find something useful after all, even though it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.
Posted by Christa on August 31st, 2009
Unless B&Q is closed today since it’s Bank Holiday Monday and all, I’m buying myself the keyset you see in the picture here. I need it to get into my cell phone. Not sure why they haven’t used regular screws, but I guess they want to make it a bit more tricky to destroy :p
Robin asked yesterday if I was sure I wanted to take the phone apart…heh Guess I could order a new one just in case I fiddle too much and happens to lose things that are needed for it to work :p
The metal sheet I need for the sake of dressing the base of the phone is not exactly the kind of metal sheet that you buy from a supplier. You learn a lot about a lot of odd stuff when you’re into Steampunk modifications and this time it’s about the thickness of brass and copper. What I need is copper or brass foil, which still is metal, but very thin metal. Thin enough to actually cut with a regular scissor…even if that’s not recommended if you care about your scissors :p
So today, if there are any hobby stores open, I’ll buy some copper foil as well so I can get started with this
Which means that there will probably be piccies tomorrow or in a couple of days )
Until then….
