Illuminating

Earlier this year, we visited a wonderful little store that had a LOT of beautiful things with very high price tags.  I would love to have many of the things they sell but, for me and my budget, I'll just have to use their items as inspiration to create my own.  One thing we saw that day was a gorgeous glass lamp.  It looked like it was made from a tall glass candle stand.  A light socket had been attached to the top with epoxy and the cord hung down the back.  It was close to $500!  I loved it and some ideas immediately popped into my head of how I could make one and where I could find supplies to do so.

Soon after, I popped into a Home Goods store to look for glass candle sticks/stands.  I found lots of choices.  But, I passed up the clear options for some with more color.  I love color!  The first one I decided on was turquoise.  It's a perfect match to the bits of turquoise in our living room sofa.

I created this...

From this...

The base cost less than $10.  To turn it into a lamp, I purchased a lamp kit, harp, and finial from Lowes.  I think that cost around $15.  I found a lamp shade at Ross for less than $5.  The lamp kit came with several rubber bases (kind of like rubber corks) to screw the socket into. They're meant for use with bottles or jugs to turn them into lamps and would be placed in the hole of the bottle.  I marked the center on top of the candle stand and attached one of the rubber bases with epoxy.  When it was dry, I carefully screwed the lamp kit into the rubber base with the harp, added the shade and finial and....voila!  A lamp!

I also bought this silver candlestick/stand.  I couldn't resist!  It's pretty and the price was great.  It was also under $10.  It had a hole in the top for a taper candle.  That made it easy to turn it into a lamp since the lamp kit was made to put into a hole with it's rubber/wine cork-like bases.  None of the  rubber bases that came with the lamp kit were a perfect fit.  So, I used a wine cork.  I just drilled a hole in one end and sawed it down to make it short enough to be flush with the top when I stuck it into the base.  The lamp kit came with a round, flat, brass plate that goes under the socket and covered the cork.

I finished it off with a shade and finial and I had another lamp for around $25.  I love it!

My daughter was shopping with me that day and got excited about the idea.

She found a gorgeous glass stand that looks like mercury glass.

She turned it into this...

The epoxy didn't hold the glass and rubber base together very well.  So, hubby found a metal gizmo to glue down and screw the socket into.  It's a gorgeous lamp!  I love it and so does she.

Wow...while typing this up, I realized that we made three unique lamps for a grand total of about $80.  What a savings from the expensive one that inspired us!  That even beats the price of discount store lamps.  They're usually $25-40 and up for the base and then shades are often $15 or more.  And, these home made lamps are kind of unique.  I likely won't go into someone's house and see the same lamp(s).  I like that.

These were fun projects and I bet it won't be the last time we create lamps.  I look at vases, candle sticks, and all kinds of things differently now.  I've been keeping my eye out for something to turn into a floor lamp.  I love those!   And, we could still use more lighting in our house.