White Paper Flower Pendant Light

I hope everyone had a fabulous Thanksgiving!  Personally, I caught a cold, so I spent a chunk of the weekend curled up on the couch with Basel watching movies.  And since I didn’t have too much time to be creative, I thought this was the perfect time to post about a light that I made a few months ago but never had a chance to share.  Do you guys remember my Paper Starburst Pendant Light?  Well this light is made from the same white vellum, but instead of spikes I used a paper punch to cut out flower shapes!

I’ve also realized recently that I have a tendency to be a bit long winded, and while that’s not always a bad thing, it might make my tutorials a bit harder to follow.  So, I’m going to do my best to start summarizing projects in a few simple easy steps, and then separately elaborate on any steps that need additional explanations.  Hopefully these tutorials will be easier to follow but if anyone feels I’m leaving out too much information please let me know!  I’ll try to do these shorter and clearer tutorials from now on, and maybe even go back and simplify some earlier posts, if people think these are much easier to follow.

Materials: Paper lantern, vellum (or other paper), paper punch, glue, light bulb cord

Step 1: Cut out your flower shapes using your paper punch.  Cut as many as you think you might need, you can always cut out more later.

Step 2: Open your paper lantern, and start gluing your flower pieces on as haphazardly as you like.  Make sure you are overlapping your flowers and adding new pieces on top, layers are key to the finished look!

Step 3: Keep gluing shapes on until you are happy with the look, you may need to cut out more as you go along, its all personal preference.

Step 4: Plug your light in, hang the shade up and enjoy!

I loved using the white vellum because it has this slightly translucent quality, which was really pretty both when the light was off and when it was on.  You loose a bit of the flower shape once its lit, but I actually think I like it better that way.  

I think the beauty of this project is the final results could look really different depending on what sort of paper you used, and how thickly you layer the pieces on top of each other, and I love that!  Any project where you can add your own unique spin is a great project in my mind.

Personally I’ve also been wondering how this concept would look if I used flower shapes cut from old books, instead of the white vellum.  I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet but I promise I’ll post photos as soon as I do!  

I’ve also wondered if this would look cool on a lantern of a different color, so maybe when the light was off it looked white but when you turned it on it suddenly glowed pink or orange!  I haven’t had a chance to try that idea out either but maybe I’ll buy more vellum one of these days and give it a whirl.

This could look really pretty with different size flower punches, and also different shapes.  I just have one simple shape at the moment but imagine a slightly more detailed Hawaiian flower, or something with more angular petals, they could look really beautiful layered together.  There are so many possibilities!  What shape punch do you think would work well with this concept?  I’d love to hear your ideas!

Have a lovely week everyone, cheers!  Allison

Erasable Paint Chip Calendar

I am so pleased with this project, and not just because it’s fun and colorful.  It is also this amazing compilation of all these different projects all coming together to create something new and wonderful!  A calendar and art, all in one.

A long time ago, when I first started collecting project ideas from design blogs, I spotted this fun little project from Papernstitch.  They had framed a pretty piece of fabric, and were then using the glass of the picture frame as a dry erase board.  Brilliant!  I have a lot of extra random frames but I also have some simple little dry erase boards already and I find they only have so many uses.  And then I spotted this project on Pinterest.  It takes the picture frame dry erase board to a new level as a calendar, AND it uses paint chips, only my favorite project material ever!!  I knew right away that I had to make this happen, though I’m a bright and colorful person so I decided to use bolder stronger colors instead of the subtle yellows from the pinterest post.

Overall it’s a pretty simple project.  I found this big square clip frame I had lying around from Ikea, and actually really loved the fact that it was just essentially a piece of glass with a backing but no traditional frame around the outside.  It’s a bit more modern and crisp, which is totally my style.  I had briefly had this idea of making my own clip frame with some plexi I had lying around, and bulldog clips, but when I found this frame I decided against it, but I still liked the visual aesthetic of the bulldog clips.  I decided to keep the clips that the frame came with for added support, but I still included the bulldog clips for the visual look, plus maybe I can also use them to hold notes or my dry erase marker, possibly tied to a string or something.

I decided to use a long piece from a Behr paint chip for the month, and then square pieces from Benjamin Moore paint chips for the days.  Initially I was worried about darker colors, but then I started testing them and once you add the layer of glass you actually can see the black marker on top of most colors.  First I cut up a bunch of paint chips, in all the colors I thought I might like.  Then I laid them all out, to make sure I visually was happy with the color palette and organization.  I added the days of the week label pieces at the end, once I had the regular calendar days laid out once I could see what colors would be best.  Of course not all projects go smoothly and with this piece I was about 75% finished when I decided I was leaving too much space between chips.  Oops!  Here’s a pic of the partially finished project, right before I started ripping paint chips off to start again.

In the end I left 1/4 inch of space between each chip (I had left 1/2 inch originally) and I like that it is more visually tight, while leaving a larger white area around the edges and on the bottom.  I used a few little pieces of double-stick tape for each chip, and it worked brilliantly.  Then I decided to decorate the blank spaces with my circular paint chip art (since I had a ton of circles already cut out anyway) and I really love how it turned out because it is both functional and really a piece of art in it’s own right!

I already have a calendar hanging next to my fridge for organizing my social and work life, but what I really needed is somewhere to physically (as opposed to online) keep track of all of my lighting orders, when they are due to be shipped by and any special notes I might have.  So far as you can see my calendar is functioning just as I need it to, and I even have plenty of white space for notes about specific orders!  I did debate adding an extra row of days at the bottom so I could start into the next month, but I figure that as I get closer to a new month (like December for instance) I can start again at the top and just add the last few days of the previous month.  Or I can start a simple list on one side of upcoming orders I need to keep track of.

So far it doesn’t have a home yet up on the wall, because the space I am thinking of hanging it is already holding a big cork board (which is going to be transitioned eventually to a different wall) so I can’t take any pics of it in place just yet but I promise an update as soon as its hung up since I’m still thinking of all the fun additions and accessories I could add to it!

Since I probably won’t post again before Thursday, I also wanted to wish everyone a very happy Turkey Day!!  Ciao, Allison

Through the Camera Lens – The Transit Project

You probably have all gathered by now that I LOVE crafting.  Hand me a glue gun and I’m a happy camper!  But what you may not know is that I also love photography!  Sometimes these days it seems like all I’m shooting are product photos, but I’m always keeping an eye out for the next great photograph, no matter where I am.  I’ve posted my photos here before, but I thought I might try and make it a more regular series, featuring photos that I might be taking currently or ones I’ve taken in the past.

The fun thing about photography is that you don’t need a whole lot of fancy equipment to have fun.  Over the summer I discovered the awesome iPhone app Instagram, and immediately I was hooked!  I had been looking for something to occupy me during my commute to work, and now I had a fun new toy to play with.  I started scanning through old photos I’d taken, searching for anything that might make a fun new polaroid and that’s when I discovered this photograph, which I had taken in Medellin, Colombia on a school trip two years ago.

I had already loved this photo, but there was a new added pop with the increased contrast and cropping, thanks to Instagram.  And immediately, my eye gravitated towards the bright road yellow in the center of the photo, and a new project was born.  I’ve dubbed this “The Transit Project” and while it includes a few photos like this from past trips, the bulk of my journey has been capturing the mundane NYC subway system on my way to and from work.  (And one on Ferry to Ikea…)  I think what I love so much about this is taking something gritty and giving it a bit of a new spin, thinking about it in a more material way.  The gleam of the silver trains versus the bright yellow on the platform, and the dark black of the tunnels.  The quality isn’t high, because the photos are all taken in low light with my iPhone, but the point isn’t to have a fancy photography project, its to look at something in a fun new way.  So I hope you enjoy these next few photos, and if I capture any other great ones moving forward I’ll make sure to share them!

Ciao, and have a lovely weekend!  Allison

Soda Can Tab Small Diagonal Pendant Light

So you are all probably getting a bit sick of these soda can tab lights, but this should be the last one for a while because my obsession seems to have run its course, at least for the time being.  Since I was exploring a new concept, I started with a small drum shade to see if the concept would work and if I was happy with the final results.  And I am!

Personally I think the diagonal design is a bit more ‘shimmery’ and sort of reminds me of a fish.  Though then again maybe I’m just nuts…  Anyone else see a goldfish of sorts?  No, just me?  Maybe its this photo, something happened between the ambient light and the dimmed low level incandescent bulb, the orange color sort of reminds me of this goldfish hanging light I saw somewhere.  It certainly is a pretty result!  (Then again it also reminds me of chainmail, which isn’t connected to goldfish, so who really knows.)

I used the trusty Lobbo shade again, which I just love, especially because it comes flat so it is easy to store before use, and its especially easy for drawing guidelines on.  That’s how I made this light, I carefully drew guidelines onto the shade using a triangle I have left over from my architectural drafting days.  

I spaced the lines 1/2″ apart, horizontally, though I found out in retrospect they could have been a bit closer together for a proper overlap.  Though it does leave more white space which is an interesting and different look so its hard to say if it was a ‘mistake’ or not.  I’m still deciding that.

I discovered early that because of the diagonal, you ended up with a jagged bottom (and therefore top) edge, but I actually think its pretty cool looking.  To glue the tabs onto the shade, I picked an arbitrary spot and started by gluing two tabs in place, and then overlapping one tab on top of those two, plus extending it further towards the bottom of the shade.  Its a bit hard to explain, but it should make sense when you are looking at the physical pieces in front of you.  

The width of the tabs then widened slowly as I went around, working along in a growing triangle shape.  Because each tab is overlapping another one and there isn’t a ‘bottom row’ to start with you have to build it up slowly, rotating the shade as you go.  For me the right edge of the tabs basically started making a straight line, but because it is going diagonally up the shade the number of tabs needed for each row increases as that right edge gets further from the horizontal bottom edge of the light.

One thing I’m left wondering, though, is if this design would work well in a larger size.  I know the straight edged look worked really well in a wider shade but I’m not so sure about the diagonal.  There’s something about the vertical shape of the small shade that really helps accentuate the diagonal lines.  Maybe if I kept the largest Lobbo shade in its original squarer shape instead of cutting it down like I did for my large version, but I just don’t know.  I guess I’ll see if I get any nibbles on Etsy before exploring the idea.

I hope you enjoyed this newest iteration, and as I said I promise that this should be the last soda can pop tab light for a while, unless of course inspiration strikes!

Check back early next week, I hope to have some fun photographs to show everyone, followed by a bright and colorful new project (that isn’t a light!)  Ciao, Allison

Book Pages Pencil Cups

I am so excited about today’s project, because for the first time in a while, it’s not a light! Don’t get me wrong, I love my lights, and the first idea that always pops into my head with a new material is “could that be a light?”  But sometimes, it is refreshing to do something different, and it can spark your imagination in new and unforeseen ways.

As you may know, I make lights out of old books.  Old books that I cut up.  Specifically I cut circles out of them, to make my Artichoke Mixed Book Page Light.  (Which I first explored in this 30x30x3 post before discovering the key was full circles, not just simple scallop shaped pieces.)  Many, many circles…

I love finding a new use for a forgotten about item (often I collect unwanted books from friends or used book sales), but once I cut the circles out there is still a chunk of book left.  I always carefully save the left over pieces and recycle them with my newspaper and cardboard, but sometimes I’ve wished I could do more, that I could find some other cooler use for the left over part of the pages.  And then, a couple of weeks ago, I had a stack of the pages sitting there and suddenly a lightbulb went off.  Wait a second, I essentially have a rectangle with two circular holes in it.  What can you do with holes like that?  Use them to hold things!!

Of course I immediately began racking my brain as to what would be the right shape and size.  An existing metal pencil cup I had didn’t fit, and neither did a piece of cardboard tube I’d been holding on to.  And then I remembered these two small cardboard tubes that I had from a fancy invitation I got in the mail.  They were so cute that I had been keeping them hoping that one day I’d find a good use for them, and what do you know I found one!  They were the perfect fit, especially because they were just slightly smaller than the actual holes which made it easier to get through the stack of books, and it allowed for the small variation in exactly hole location in each page.

Overall, I think the key to this project was ‘less is more’ at least in terms of production methods.  Basically, I cut out a piece of scrap cardboard that was just a little bit smaller than my book pages.  Then I glued one book page down on top, to serve as a template for where to glue down my cans.  The bottom of the cans had a little bit of an edge, so I also cut out a piece of cardboard to fill-in that bottom part, and give me an even and level surface for gluing the cans down to the base.  After gluing the cans in place, I basically just started adding book pages, dropping them down from above, with the one hole going around each can.  I didn’t use any glue because you really don’t need it, and it can start making the pages wrinkle or scrunch up in funny ways.  

I also noticed with this first attempt that the spine-edge of the pages still had some of the rubber glue on it, so it looked different.  I probably could have just kept a nice mix of orientations so each side of the pencil cup had some spine edges and some clean edges, but I decided instead to keep all of the pages sitting in the same direction.  However, because of the glue residue the spine edge side of my pencil cups stuck up a bit higher than the other side.  But I discovered that if I pushed it down to be level with the clean edge side of the pages, and then smeared hot glue on the spine edges, they stuck together in this more compressed manner and you could make the top of your structure level again.  I think for my next version though I might try quickly trimming off the glue residue so that both sides lie equally flat.  And that way you’d have a double sided finished product instead of something that has a ‘good’ side and a ‘not-so-good’ side.

I also learned that my cardboard tubes were a bit tall for holding pencils and pens, so I cut out a bunch of cardboard circles to drop down into the bottom of the cans, to raise everything up.  I measured the height of an existing pencil cup I am using but I still think it might be too tall, especially for those short colorful pens!  Maybe I can use this for special items, taller special items like the unsharpened pencils and scissors.  

Another thing I love about this project is how it can get the wheels spinning in my head.  I already have ideas for how I can take this and build on it!  For once I’m cutting circles out of books thinking as much about the left over pieces as I am about the actual circles!  Its fun to see a supply like this in such a different and unique way, and it makes me feel like I’m doubly recycling these books!  So stay tuned, one of these days I just might have a project update based on this very pencil holder.  I guess it depends on how many circles I’m going to be cutting out in the future, and if I have enough time when I’m not supposed to be making lights that I can try some new projects.

Have a lovely week everyone, ciao!  Allison

Art Around NYC – Clocktower Gallery

A few weeks ago I had the chance to visit the Clocktower Gallery here in New York, as part of a Guggenheim Intern program.  To quote the website, “The Clocktower Gallery is a non-profit art center located in lower Manhattan.  Founded in 1972, the Clocktower has long been the site for ground breaking exhibitions and art residencies.  The Clocktower is also home to AIR, Art International Radio.”  And its built right below this really cool looking clock tower!  Check out the awesome photos from their website:

Basically its this kind of trippy gallery space, where they have artist residencies, and run a radio station, and have music performances.  They have a larger space on the official top floor of the building, and then a private staircase up into the room right below the clock, with access to this amazing wrap around deck with those big stone eagles.  Here are some great pics I snapped of the view, we all sort of decided that this was just the kind of place you’d fire off the Bat signal from!

This was one of those amazing spaces where everything you saw was probably art of some kind.  They had these funny ‘talking’ light bulbs that flickered on and off along with recordings and would bicker back and forth.  They sort of looked like strobe lights and were part ‘cool art’ and part ‘annoying flashing.’  I’m still debating that one.  I also loved the staircase up into the official ‘Clocktower Gallery,’ it was all covered in graffiti, and was really gorgeous.  I stupidly only had my iPhone with me so the pics are a bit grainy, but you get the idea.

And then, coolest of all, right up in the Clocktower Gallery there was this art piece/installation/architectural fabrication, honestly I’m not really sure what you’d call it.  But whatever you’d call it, it was so amazingly awesome, oh and bright orange!  The curator in charge of the gallery who gave us the tour said that the piece also had this upper stage space, so it could be incorporated into the musical performances they have in the space, I think that’s the upper deck space.  

Personally I think it looks like it would make an amazing playhouse.  I mean there’s that interior space that could be a desk for doing homework, the upper space could be like a tree house, you could decorate it with christmas tree lights.  Seriously, coolest playhouse ever!  Now I’m sad I didn’t have one as a kid.  Though who am I kidding, I wish I had this space right now, forget the kid part…

 

New project to come Monday!  Ciao, Allison

Soda Can Tab Large Drum Shade

Sunday greetings everyone, things have been a bit crazy around NYC recently, due to the freak snowstorm yesterday!  We may have crazy weather, but we’ve never had snow in October, and enough that it actually started sticking to things!  I’ll include some photos of the snow at the end of this post, but for now I have a fun new project to show everyone.  I thought while we were discussing drum shades I’d show you guys how the large version of my soda can tab light came out! 

Recently I posted about my first foray into using soda can pop tabs for a light.  I love this small size, and can totally see a string of them over a bar or kitchen counter.  But, I had also really wanted to experiment with doing a much larger size, for a real statement piece, and something that would look fantastic over a table or as the main light in a room. So here it is, and I think (if its possible) I love it even more than the original small size!!

Overall the light is approximately 14 1/2 inches wide (diameter) and 9 inches tall.  I used the same Lobbo shades, but this time I used the largest size they offer.  However, the original shade is very square, its 14 wide by 13 high, and I wasn’t crazy about that aspect ratio.  I really wanted a final light that was rectangular so that the width was really emphasized.  So, I simply whipped out my Xacto blade and cut it down to a more appropriate height.  (Though I made sure to measure the light fixture first and make sure that they light bulb would still be adequately covered by the shade.)  Overall I’m really happy with these dimensions, I think it nicely captures the rectangular aspect ratio I was looking for, and I love how wide it is!

Annoyingly, I’ve found it a bit difficult to photograph.  I find all of these Soda Can Tab lights a bit tricky, but this one is even harder because it is so large and the detail is so small and almost finicky.  Also the reflective qualities of the silver metal make lighting the shade quite difficult, and I’ve even had trouble with colored light from my TV reflecting off of the shade!  I also have trouble with the lack of light in my apartment (especially now that we are entering the winter months and the sun is lower in the sky.) One day maybe I’ll have my own studio, with big windows and a place to set up a clean white backdrop, and a whole little setting with furnishings to give my lights nice context. Ah, a girl can dream can’t she?  (Of course most girls probably dream of diamonds, I dream of real estate, I’m weird like that, its the architect in me I guess.)  For now I’ll stick to my favorite set up with this fun colorful Japanese print and gorgeous Japanese basket.

Overall this light used almost 1500 pop tops!!  Personally I chose to glue them on with the light already assembled into the drum shape, but I sometimes wonder if I could have just as easily glued them on while it was still flat.  I was worried that the curvature would do something funny to the pop tabs if they had been glued on while flat, so it was just easier not to risk it.  It’s not too difficult gluing them on while the light is curved, but the whole process does take a LOT of time!  I did this shade over a few different evenings, partly because I could only stand to glue on so many pop tabs at one time.  But also just because of how long it took.  I would estimate at LEAST 10 hours, possibly more.  At least it is relatively mindless work and so I can watch movies, though I try to either choose something I’ve seen before or something I don’t care that much about because a project this detailed takes a lot of visual concentration, or you’re likely to glue the pop tabs on crooked, or even worse burn yourself!  Hot glue is, of course, pretty hot but what I hadn’t realized before starting was how quickly it would conduct through the metal of the tabs!  Its a bit tricky trying to glue something small into place when it starts getting too hot to handle.  I found speed was essential, plus the ability to remove pieces if they were crooked.

I’m going to try and post some more Art Around NYC posts soon, because I’d like to begin posting more frequently if I’m able to with my schedule.  But, I also have a couple of other new projects in the works and some people might be excited to learn, they aren’t lights! That’s right, I am actually working on two new projects that aren’t lights.  Well, one was supposed to be a light that sort of backfired, but the other project was never, ever, meant to be a light.  Even I get sick of lights sometimes, and its always fun to try new things so I’m excited that I’ve finally had time to play around a bit and make some fun new projects for myself.  Though don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll have plenty of new lights to show you all soon!  In fact I might space out my new non-light projects a bit, for more variety.  We’ll see how quickly I get things finished and photographed, and if the daylight in my apartment behaves.

And now as promised, a few photos from yesterday, including one of Basel reluctantly braving the storm.  He loves snow but hates slush because it just makes his paws all wet and cold, not to mention the rest of him that is so close to the ground!

Ciao, hopefully no one was hit too hard by Snowtober, and everyone is staying warm and dry and looking forward to a good week!  Allison

(P.S. – Here’s the link to this light in my Etsy shop, in case anyone wants more physical details or is nervous about making their own and would like to purchase one.)