DIY Lights

After completing Abe, I realized that the lights I had hanging next to him weren’t very complementary. The lights were green paper lanterns from college. They worked ok with the painting I had up before, but I decided it was time for a change. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money and I wanted to re-use the lamp kits I had bought from World Market for the lanterns.

All I needed was to make a shade of some sort for the lamp kits, so I went to the first place I usually go for supplies: The Salvation Army. After some looking around, I stumbled upon these old mixing bowls. What grabbed my attention was that there were two of them and they were exactly the same. That’s what I needed. A pair of something. I had two lamp sets.

The mixing bowls (1) themselves were not quite the shape I was looking for, they were a little plain. So I looked for something that I could use to make them more appealing. Then I saw these two copper pastry molds (2). At least I think that’s what they were. All I know is that they were an interesting shape and again, there were two of them. I wanted to somehow attach these two copper molds to the tops of my mixing bowls. All four of these cost me less than $10. Yesss!

Next, I went to Ace hardware for some epoxy, a blade for cutting metal, and some yellow spray paint. I took a Sawzall and cut a hole the size of my bulb (so the lamp kit could run through) in both the mixing bowl and the copper mold. Then I took some heavy duty epoxy and attached them both together. (3) After the glue dried, I got some yellow spray paint and applied two coats. (4) Then voila! – two identical new lights. I think the smaller shape and yellow color works a lot better with Abe now.