Casual steampunk mantel

There's steampunk and then there's I want to be slightly more subtle steampunk. I happen to be a fan of both. I love to think how fast I would trick out my living room in nature/scientific Victorian splendor if I had the stuff; but in reality I'm a little more casual. When some friends gave me an old microscope in a wooden box I knew I wanted to make a steampunk-inspired display.

The box the microscope is stored in made a great stand to get different levels.

A jar (I think it once held fruit preserves and then I removed the label and spray painted the lid) full of old keys sits in a candle stand.

The other side is a necessary lamp, an old glass insulator and a metal tray and metal bowl with a glass "lid."

The "lid" is actually a light fixture cover I bought at a thrift shop and I spent months thrifting and antiquing to find a bowl it would fit inside. I'm using it to keep dust out of a bird nest I found when I trimmed the pampas grass and a little half eggshell I found elsewhere in the yard. Wrong egg for the nest but you work with what you find, right?

A look at the whole: casual steampunk-inspired style.

Really casual.