I’ve been prototyping a pretty simple lamp using a piece of paper as the shade. A little fine tuning is still needed to get the dimensions right, but I’m liking where it’s going. I’ll probably group three or four of these lamps together with shades made from letter size (8.5″ x 11″) and legal size (8.5″ x 14″) paper.
Maybe go the kit route, I make the lamp base, you build the shade. More to come.
If you have never seen Lindsey Adelman Studio’s work, go right now. I’ll wait.
The work they create is fantastic. But they recently released a build it yourself instructional of one of their chandeliers. It has everything, step by step directions, parts list, vendor sources. It’s basically the top secret recipe on how to make one of their wonderful lamps.
I think it’s incredibly brave to release something like this (don’t know if I could do it). But I know I can’t wait to make one of these.
My friend Cherry Sunshine thought the Museum of Arts and Design’s DIY Salon: Cut Paper might be a good fit. Fortunately for me, MAD thought the same thing.
On December 10th I’m going to be showing how to make Star Light Minis. Basically, the same thing as the original Star Lights, only smaller (duh). And these are lit by Christmas lights. If you’ve got nothing to do on the 10th (and you have $10), come on by, starts at 6.
A little more info:
Guest artists inlcude:
- Esther K. Smith, book artist and co-founder of Purgatory Pie Press. Make your own instant book. . .
- Ben Light, of B. Light Designs. Manilla envelopes become magic lanterns. . .
- Jewler Sarah Abramson, creating paper jewelry. . .
- Katie Sokoler, of Color me Katie. Silhouettes!
and more. . .
Looks like it will be a lot of fun.
I’ve talked about the logs I saved from a lake bottom before, also the bowl I made from one of the logs. While I was at it, I turned a lamp from one of the lake logs.
After decades of being submerged, the wood has become gray and full of character. It also makes identify the species tough, I’m guessing oak with a hint of lake dirt. The lamp doesn’t look too bad sporting the perfect lamp shade.
I have been on the hunt for the perfect lamp shade. I’ve tried making them (here and here). I’ve tried buying them (very expensive). I’ve even tried not using them (here and here). But no luck, until now.
I think I’ve finally found it, just a simple plain little drum shade. And it’s not too pricey either. If anyone out there has one of my lamps, I would try using this shade.
My Vacuum Lamp was selected as a finalist in Inhabitat’s Spring Greening contest.
Take a look at all of the finalists, there is some great stuff there. And if you like what you see, please vote.
I made a bunch of lamps with the pretty much the same shaped base. Basically an experiment to figure out what type of wood and finish I like best. I’ve been calling them Puck Lamps.
All of the lamps are for sale.
I posted two new instructables recently, take a look.
Steps on how to wire a turned lamp.
And a quick instructable on how to build a simple tool to thread turned wooden lamps. This tool makes wiring wooden lamps very easy.
Grand Brass sells the best lamp sockets I’ve ever worked with. So much better than the cheap brass crap you can get at the hardware store, the sockets actually screw together.
The best one has a built in dimmer switch (near the bottom of the page). They are expensive, but so worth the price.
I was in the Poconos a couple of weeks ago and turned two lamp blanks: one birch (the tall one), one maple (the fat one). Both turned green and allowed to crack. Need to dry them out completely (nuke them) before I can add the finish.
