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You can see it is very outdated.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!