Tuesday, February 7, 2012

{Craft this}: Bottle Lamp.

{Guest post brought to you by my mom, transcribed and interjected by me}


Many years ago, we had good friends who all collected wine - we got a 1977 Port from one such friend (for some nice occasion). We drank it finally in 2011 at a choir party. We didn't want to throw the bottle away so we kept it. Jacob (note: my brother) adopted the bottle and decided he wanted it made into a lamp. And thus, this post was born.

To much such a lamp, we first googled how to do so and found the delighful Lil at Lavender Clouds. She detailed perfectly how to make a wine bottle lamp. We followed her directions, found here.

What you'll need:
bottle of choice (or jug)
drill and bit for tile and glass
bottle lamp kit (in lamp repair area of Home Depot)
lamp shade of choice
safety goggles
helpful: someone else to help

What you'll do:
1) Get a towel, safety goggles, and glass of water. You will drill a hole into the bottom of the bottle (the back) - you'll want the water for cooling the drill bit as you go. You'll lay the bottle down and put it on a towel (to hold it better). You'll drill vertically into the bottle near the base, creating a hole for your cord.
2) Once you have your hole, you thread the cord (from the purchased bottle lamp kit) into the hole, feeding it up through the neck. You may want a piece of a wire hanger to guide the wire through the neck. You'll find directions on the lamp bottle kit.
3) Once you have the wire threaded through the neck, you put the stopper on, threading the wire through (the kit has 3 sizes of stoppers - use the one that works for you). Now that you've got the wire through the stopper, you're ready to connect the wire to the socket.
4) The socket screws onto the stopper - there are going to be screws on the side of the socket that the wires attach to. Do that. (Your kit will have directions).
5) Screw in your light bulb and put on your lampshade (if your lampshade has a harp, you'll need an extra piece not found in the kit - that goes on before the socket). Our lampshade was from Lowe's and did not require a harp.

And, ta-da, here is the finished product! Don't you love the green glass illuminated?
My parents delivered the lamp to my brother and he texted me this picture of the lamp "in situ".

My mother reports that this craft was easy and fun - it took my parents 45 minutes to complete. They used the directions combined from the back of the package and Lavender Clouds with success, so reference both when you do your lamp.

So - go craft this!

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As I'm sure you can guess I love the bottle you chose for your lamp. DOW's Port has been a favorite bottle in my DOW family for ages and ages.
I may need to place an order for one of these to take home to the mother(and father)ship!

GREAT POST!

Hilly

Unknown said...

Hilly, I totally thought of you during this post! This is a bottle of port that my dad brought to your house for some choir party - maybe Christmas last year? It is a good choice. You guys totally need to make Dow bottle lamps!

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