PAD Inspired Swag/Float Lamps

I finally picked up a copy of Matt Maranian's PAD, and loved the simplicity of his Hawaiian Eye Swag Lamps. I picked up a pair of white acrylic overhead light globes from Home Depot for $9.99 each, and used fine grade sandpaper over the entire surface so the paint would adhere better.

In the book the light fixture is held in place with a couple of twisted wires, but I had another idea. I used a couple of clip-in light cord sets I picked up at Dollar Tree. The lights come packaged with the bulb fixture inside a clear acrylic tube to protect during shipping. Since it's already the perfect size, I thought I'd use it to mount the fixture inside the globes.

I traced around the mouth of the globe onto a thin plastic sheet. In this case it's a CD bin divider from my Music Store days. Then I just cut an opening in the center for the tube, and hot glued them in place. I drilled four holes in the globe necks and used zip-ties to hold them in place.

Using Sisal twine I wrapped both globes, tying off the ends.

Then I just sprayed them with a few light, even coats of paint. After the paint is dry you cut away the twine.

Re-wrap!

Just to clean up the cords a little, I sprayed then brown & wrapped them with more twine. I split a piece of bamboo and notched the back so the cords would run through and out, and hung the whole contraption from a couple of eye hooks. I think it's adds some color and gives the corner some character. And cheap! $20 for the globes, $2 for the bulbs/fixtures and the rest of the stuff I already had around the house.

[ Edited by: badmojo 2005-08-27 18:25 ]

Very nice! I suppose you could replace the twine with rope and tie up some netting to make hanging float lamps.

Ultra cool project! Thanks for sharing badmojo!

Very cool. Nice lamps, nice and cheap.

hey badmojo, those lamps turned out great! very swag!

great idea... thinking about make a couple myself

Very creative, very nice!