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Make A Light Show Lamp

by on Jun 26, 2008

A low lit lamp in a corner of a room.

So. It’s not exactly a Kanye style light show, but it does throw
pretty patterns onto the wall and ceiling and it’s dead easy to make.

I used

These just happened to be the most uh, ‘cost effective’ shade and
base that Ikea had, but I’m pretty sure this would work with whatever
you happen to have around.

  • craft paper or wrapping paper
  • a craft knife
  • scissors
  • a bit o’ tape.

First you’ll need to trace around your lampshade to find the surface area you’ll be working with,created on: 06/26/08

It won’t be a rectangle on account of the conicallyness (yup, I just made it up.) of the lampshade.

You should have something that looks a bit like this created on: 06/26/08.

Now that you know the area you have to work with, you can plot out
your design. Something to bear in mind is that you can’t cut all the
way around your design, you can only lift out the edges.

Once you’ve got your design down, pop it over the lampshade and secure it with the spot o’ tape.created on: 06/26/08 Still look okay? Great, then cut it out…created on: 06/26/08

Now that you’ve got your design cut out you need to ‘pinch’ out the edges, created on: 06/26/08 This will give you an idea of how the finished product is going to look and also make a guideline for the next step.

created on: 06/26/08 Using the cut out edge as a guide, trace your design onto the lampshade in pencil.

You
could skip the whole ‘carefully plot your design on paper’ stage and go
straight to the drawing on/cutting out of the lampshade. I didn’t on
account of how it’s cheaper to mess up (4 times) on paper. But if
you’ve got the design chops then go ahead.

Right, now carefully cut out your design using a craft knife and some patience.created on: 06/26/08

Remember
how you had to pinch out the edges of your design on paper? Well now
you have to do that to the lampshade. It’s slightly trickier and it
turns out that it’s best to have VERY CLEAN hands.

I found that peeling the edges back a few degrees at a time worked better than just jamming them back into a valley fold created on: 06/26/08

One light show lampcreated on: 06/26/08, it looks okay in daylight too.

It occurs to me that I have used yet another bug design, I might be a closet entomologist.

I got the idea from here via ohdeedoh.com

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