Inspired by the other steampunk goggle instructables, I wanted to make my own, but lacked the resources, mainly leather. So scrounging around, I came up with these goggles using a baseball, the hem from some jeans, and a couple Gatorade lids. I managed to make these for a grand total of zero dollars, but some costs may arise if you don't have all the materials laying around.

Step 1: Parts List

Here's what you'll need to make these goggles:

baseball
two Gatorade lids
hem from jeans
thin clear plastic
black and metallic spray paint
needle and thread
utility knife
Gorilla glue or comparable adhesive
hot glue gun

Step 2: Cut Open the Baseball

Take the utility knife and cut along the sew line on the baseball. Make sure to cut deep! Once you've cut all the way around, peel the edge of one side up and pull it off. You'll notice a bunch of sticky threads on the inside; these can be peeled off from the outside leather.

Step 3: Ready the Leather

Remove all the red thread bits from the edge of the leather. Now take the utility knife and cut the leather in half down the skinny part. Next take the black spray paint and coat both sides of the leather pieces.

Step 4: Prepare the Eyepieces

Take your Gatorade lids and, with the utility knife, cut out circles from the tops of them. Try to keep the circles even and clean for best results. You don't want them too close to the edge either; try about a quarter of an inch in from the edge. Then take your metallic spray paint (gold would probably look best, but all I had was silver) and coat the entire outside of each eyepiece. Let these dry outside with the leather.

Step 5: The Strap

Take an old pair of jeans or jean scraps with the bottom hem and cut the hem off. The jeans I used had two parallel stitches on the hem, and I cut between them so the strap wouldn't be too thick. Then cut the loop open at one of the two seams. Now coat both sides of the fabric with the black spray paint and let that dry outside along with the leather and eyepieces.

Step 6: Install the Eyepieces

Once everything has dried, take one eyepiece and line it up on the bulge of one of the leather pieces. Take a pencil or something that can mark on the painted leather and trace the inside circle of the eyepiece onto the leather. Now, take the utility knife and cut out that circle leaving four tabs. These tabs will be used to secure the leather to the eyepiece. Make sure to save the cutout in one piece! You'll use one of the cutouts later for the nosepiece.

Using some Gorilla glue or something comparable, secure the tabs to the eyepiece, clamp them down, and let them dry.

Step 7: The Lenses

First, take a moment to plug in your hot glue gun to let it heat up.

Take some clear plastic, such as from a fruit container (I used strawberry and blueberry containers), and place a Gatorade upside down on the plastic. Trace the outside edge with a sharpie, then cut out about 1/4 inch inside this line. You want the lens to be larger than the opening in the eyepieces, but smaller than the inside of the gatorade lid, so err on the side of too large and trim it down to fit.

Once the tabs in the eyepieces have finished drying, place the lens inside the eyepiece, make sure the edges all overlap, then apply hot glue all around the edge to secure it. While you're at it, also reinforce the tabs with hot glue. Make sure the hot glue doesn't go past the edge of the eyepiece, or you'll see it through the lens!

Step 8: The Nosepiece

Take one of the leather cutouts you saved and cut out a strip for the nosepiece. You may need to adjust the length later to improve the fit, so that's why you saved both cutouts. Punch holes on both ends of the strip to attach it to the eyepieces.

Measure out an arm's length of thread and thread it onto your needle. Then tie a very large knot at the end of the thread so it won't go through the hole in the leather. Line up your eyepieces face down and run your thread through one of the holes on the outside of the leather piece slightly above half-way. Now run the needle through the bottom of the nosepiece, and back up through the hole in the leather just above where you started. Continue feeding the needle up through the back of the nosepiece and into the holes in the eyepiece, alternating holes every time. Make sure to pull it tight!

When you have about two inches of thread left, you should probably tie it up. Run the thread to back side, the through the next two holes of the leather. Loop back through those two holes again, and then through the loop in the thread you just created. Pull it tight, then tie a bunch of knots in it. I used several square knots. The pictures help a lot for this part.

Cut of the tails, and you're done! Now repeat for the other side of the nosepiece. If the nosepiece is too large or small, then you may have to either cut the existing one shorter and restitch one side, or cut a new nosepiece from the second cutout and stitch that on.

Step 9: The Strap

To attach the strap, punch three holes on the end of each leather eyepiece. Thread your needle with an arms length of thread, and stitch one end of the strap onto the back of the eyepiece, overlapping about 1/4 inch. Simply go back and forth through the three holes and over the edge several times, then tie it up in the back and cut off the tails.

Now put the goggles on and find out where to trim the strap so it fits snugly on your head. Trim it, leaving about 1/4 to overlap for stitching, then repeat the above to finish fastening the strap to the goggles.

Step 10: Finished!

Now you've finished your very own steampunk goggles! Give yourself a pat on the back and go pilot your steam-powered transportation device of choice around the neighborhood sporting your new eye protection.