Steampunk Chandelier

Turn a thrift store chandelier into a Glam Steampunk Chandelier! We’ve included specific items and dimensions for the chandelier we made, but you can make your own however you want. Just use ours for inspiration. Gather up your favorite steampunky things like skeleton keys, little locks, and even metal numbers. Add beaded chain to make it Steampunk Chic!

How To Make A Steampunk Chandelier

Flea Market Finds

1 five-arm chandelier
1 vintage padlock
1 house number, brass, 3”
2 bicycle gears, 2½”
5 drawer pull plates, brass
10 small keys (luggage, padlock, and mailbox keys)
5 furniture keys, 2¼” to 3”
3 vintage keyholes
5 luggage locks
5 vacuum tubes, 2”
10 champagne cork hoods with cap removed
45” large chandelier chain
17” cuckoo clock chain

Materials

Krylon Fusion Textured Shimmer spray paint, Graphite #2521
Krylon Outdoor Spaces Hammered Finish spray paint, Brown Metallic #2917
Krylon Premium Gold Foil Metallic spray paint, Gold Foil #1050
5 appliance bulbs, 40-watt
5 external-tooth locking washers, 1”
5 large jump rings, brass, 24mm
16-gauge brass wire
24-gauge wire, brass, copper, and silver finishes

Beads

217” beaded crystal chain, amethyst
6 faceted antique beveled beads, various colors, 5mm
16 faceted crystal rondelles, various colors, 5mm
10 round Venetian glass beads, clear/gold, 10mm
5 faceted round beads, crystal, 12mm
5 round beads, metallic silver finish, 10mm
10 donut beads, brushed gold, 12mm
5 faceted briolettes, crystal, 22mm
10 crystal bicones, red, 6mm
5 Czech pressed-glass flower beads, side-drilled, charcoal, 15mm
37 spacers, copper, 2mm to 6 mm
34 pony beads, copper, size 6/0

Tools & Supplies

round-nose pliers
chain-nose pliers
heavy-duty pliers
wire cutters

Steps

The first step to making a Steampunk Chandelier is finding the chandelier that needs a makeover. We found ours at a white elephant sale for only $5. And it works! These plain old brass chandeliers pop up at thrift stores all the time too. Next gather the steampunk goodies. This part is the most fun! We buy old keys, brass house numbers, and padlocks at flea markets and garage sales. We got the cuckoo clock chain from a clock repair shop. It was free!

1. We like to start by aging the chandelier. Paint the chandelier with a layer of Textured Shimmer Graphite spray paint. To add the look of tarnishing and pitting, spray the chandelier in spots with short bursts of the Hammered Finish Brown Metallic and Gold Foil spray paints.

2. Next we think it’s fun to dress up the lamp sockets. We added fat chain to ours.

3. Make four decorative dangles to hang around each lamp socket using small keys, luggage locks, locking washers, and faceted briolettes. Connect the dangles with wrapped loops using any of the 24-gauge wires.

Here’s a video showing how to make wrapped loops. This is how we made all the dangles and attached them:

4. Create large dangles to hang from the five chandelier arms. Ours are made with keyholes, bike gears, furniture keys, and vacuum tubes. To hang the vacuum tubes, we wrapped 24-gauge wire tightly around the top of the tube, down the side, around the bottom pins, back up the other side, then finished at the top with a wrapped loop.

5. Create swags between each socket with 14” and 20” lengths of amethyst beaded chain. Attach with large brass jump rings.

6. Make a dangle to hang from each jump ring with a 7” length of beaded chain. Connect a drawer pull plate to the end of the chain with beads and wrapped loops.

7. Hang the large padlock from 12” of cuckoo clock chain by wiring chain to the center of the chandelier and suspending the lock with beads and wrapped loops.

Hang the house number in the same fashion from 7” of cuckoo clock chain.

8. Create lightbulb cages by wiring champagne cork hoods together. Start by snipping the cork hood collar with the wire cutters to remove it.

9. Untwist the wire legs to enlarge the opening for the bulb.

10. Replace the cork hood collar with a 16-gauge wire hoop. Twist the ends of the new hoop together to secure.

11. Fit a bulb through the small opening. Make another modified hood and set it on top.

12. Use short lengths of 24-gauge brass wire to “twist-tie” the cages together. Repeat for all five bulbs.

13. Screw the caged bulbs into the chandelier.

Interested in more Steampunk Chic projects? Check out our book Steampunk Chic!

Is steampunk your style? Can you tell we love it? There’s something so fun about vintage clockfaces, locks, keys, and gears!
Happy Crafting,
Jennifer & Kitty

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