Upcycled Lamp

If you've been following my blog lately you know that I have been feeling extra crafty, so this project won't be too much of a surprise. I was playing with my latest fascination of melting plastic beads. See my most recent attempt at a bowl here:

 I would have written about the bowl but in the same hour I had this idea and totally moved on from the bowl. And besides that, my goal in making the bowls was actually to perfect a way to make a cool lamp shade. It really wasn't working out too well, UNTIL NOW (imagine a deep echoing voice here). I was standing in my kitchen after I made this very crooked bowl and thinking about things that I could use for molds to melt plastic in. Since my ultimate goal is a lamp shade I suddenly remembered an ugly  a vintage touch lamp that I had in my garage sale pile. The "touch" part of the lamp hasn't been working very well so I finally convinced my "reluctant to throw out anything he paid good money for" husband to get rid of it. I had gleefully put it in the garage sale pile that is growing in a spare room and just as gleefully ran to get it when inspiration hit me. I swear a light bulb literally appeared over my head when I had this idea. This is the old lamp: 

You can see it is very outdated. 

The first thing I did was to take all of the glass panels out then I wiped it down thoroughly with TSP to get any dirt or oils off. Then, on the advice of my crafty middle daughter, I took it outside and gave it a spray coat of primer. Here she is with her dog, Snoop, supervising me. I love this picture because Snoop is standing almost exactly like her.

 Of course by this time I had run to Wal Mart, which is less than 5 minutes away, to buy some purple spray paint and was ready to paint as soon as the primer was dry.

The plastic part came in next. I took a piece of tin foil and one of the glass panels and formed a mold. I just folded and pinched until I had it around the glass nicely.  I had decided to do some experimenting and made a few with regular foil and some with heavy duty foil. I didn't really expect there to be any difference in the end product but I wanted to see which one was easier to work with. Then I carefully removed the glass.

                           

I poured equal amounts of black and white pony beads that I had bought at Wal Mart into the crooked bowl (see first  picture above ) I had made earlier and I stirred them around. If you've been following me you know that my original plan was to get rid of the pony beads I had on hand already, but now I am a plastic melting junky and I had to go buy more. So I just randomly poured small handfuls into my foil molds and made sure that they were only a single layer. I popped them into the oven that had been preheated to 400 degrees and set the timer for 30 minutes. Don't forget to turn on your fan when you melt beads. This is where I got so excited about my project that I didn't take pictures until it was done. 

 It turned out so much better than I even imagined! My handy dandy husband wired a new switch into the base for me and Presto Chango! Brand New Freakin Awesome Lamp!

 I did have to remake 2 of the panels because I got sloppy and made the molds a little too big. The thing I discovered with the two types of foil was that with the regular foil, only the side open to the air was shiny. The side against the mold had a matte finish. With the heavy duty foil, both sides were shiny. The only thing I would do differently if I could would be to throw in a few glow in the dark beads so that they would shine for awhile after the lamp was turned off. I made this for my youngest daughter who is away right now. We are painting her room purple while she is gone and zebra print is her favorite. I can't wait to show this to her. 

So, the next time you are out thrifting keep your eyes peeled for a lamp! If you do try this project be sure to come back and tell me about it in the comments. If you write about it post a link as well. We all love to see each others projects!

The Things We Remember

 I have been looking at different ways to upcycle old bottles. I have a great friend who is a bartender and she saves me the coolest bottles. At Christmas hubby got a bottle cutter and made each of the girls a set of glasses. He said it was a pain in the rear but they all loved them so it must have been worth it. He doesn't read my blog so I can say anything I want.  I have been wanting to make hummingbird feeders.These are the bottles I decided to use.

Here are the supplies. A bottle, A spool of Jute macrame thread, a metal ring and some beads with big holes.... and of course, a messy table to create interesting photos.

I started by remembering something I learned in the third grade. Never underestimate the things that you learned in third grade art class. That's right, I said third grade. Way back then macrame was hugely popular. Hey, it was the 70's, no more need be said. Our class made plant hangers for Mothers Day. Even though I barely remember it, I remembered that you have to have an even number of strings to start with. I measured out  4 strings with great precision   that were double as far as I could stretch my arm. Get it? So each one is 2 arm lengths then I folded them each in half to form a loop.

I did a slip knot (is that the right term?) around the ring with each of the doubled pieces of jute..............

                                                                 Like this.....................

So finished it looks like this: 

So you are working with 8 pieces of jute.

When that was done I slipped it over the neck of the bottle and started by taking the two strings next to each other and adding a bead, like this:

 I just kept taking the strings from different pairs and knotting them and adding some beads where ever I felt it looked nice, remembering to embrace the imperfection. It is very much like a net.

 When I finished my knots I simply tied a knot at the top and made a second loop so that I could hang it from my outside plant/bird feeder hanger. I filled it with nutritious sugar water humming bird food and pushed the cork feeder in place.
                                                            Ta Daaaaa. Here it is.

 Here the birds are coming in to inspect the new feeder. I was sitting so close but they didn't seem to mind too much.

I'll tell you though, they did seem to mind that I took down their feeder that I made with the screw on bottom. They did not embrace the Cha Cha Cha Change. This little guy just sat right down beside me to wait for me to bring back the blue feeder that I made a few weeks ago. And then......................

                      He found it on the ground where I had set it to hang the new one.

I had purchased two types of feeder bottoms. The birds seem to like the screw on ones the best but it's hard to find bottles that fit them. The cork style are much easier but the birds are not as thrilled with them. I think they will figure it out though.