Dollar Store Toy Gun to Steam Punk Halloween Pistol

For Halloween I made a complete Steam Punk outfit for myself and had a lot of fun at our family party.

I restyled a plastic water gun from The Dollar Store into this steam punk gem and had a good time doing it!

I knew I wanted something that looked authentic in the Steam Punk style, so I started out with this orange plastic water gun on the left.

Then I spray painted it with metallic silver then gold.

The plastic is easy to cut, so I removed the curved trigger guard with a pair of wire cutters.

Next I used  Rub 'n Buff in gold and silver, plus the two Folk Art craft paints in metallic copper and burnt umber. 

I dug into my craft room stash for all kinds of fun additions like sewing snaps, curlicue scrapbook embellishments and a piece of faux leather fabric for the handles. I kept adding the metallic accents as I went along to make the whole thing look vintage and used.

 I painted a necklace chain with the metallic paints and rubbed on burnt umber to age it, then wrapped it around the end of the barrel. I used hot glue to attach most of the embellishments and Tacky Glue for the paper items. 

In the end it was a fun grown up prop for the party and didn't look anything like the orange toy I started out with. I'm thinking I could do this with other Dollar Store items for a cool Steam Punk look. I'll post about those projects when I do them.

This would even be neat for a costume for Comic Con...perhaps with a nifty looking fake holster?

We'll see.