One of my favorite DIY projects are finding ways to transform chandeliers and make them unique!

I’ve been working on creating a ‘Tween Hangout Room for my daughters. And of course I thought it should have a fun and funky chandelier!

Last week I shared a sneek peak of the room. Waverly let me pick out some of their fabric for the room. I picked out some happy black and white fabric, with pops of yellow and pink.

Today I’m sharing an easy way to create a custom light fixture with paint and fabric!

I found a basic light at my hardware store. I bought it for under $75. And it would be even cheaper if you could find a thrifted light fixture.

I decided to spray paint the light — because seriously spray painting is so much easier than manually brushing on paint. And the spray paint I used had a paint AND primer together – which really saved me time!

After the paint was dry, I measured the bands and cut strips of material to fit over them. Then I took the strips of fabric and attached them to the metal bands on the light fixture with mod podge. I just added a thin layer of mod podge around the bands and then placed the fabric over the mod podge and smoothed it down with my fingers.

Adding fabric to the chandelier seemed like a way to draw the prints in the pillows UP to the light fixtures. Which it did!

I can’t wait to show you the whole Tween Room Reveal on Thursday!! 

And here are a few other Chandelier Makeovers I’ve created over the past year or two:

DIY Orb Chandelier Knock Off

 DIY Wood Beaded Chandelier Tutorial

Beachy Wood Bead Chandelier

$8 Chandelier Update  

xoxo

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I have had such a fun time designing my new line of scrapbook paper and embellishments for American Crafts!! It’s going to be a scrapbook paper line that has a modern home decor spin! I can’t wait to tell you more soon!!

I was able to go down to the Craft and Hobby Association show – CHA a few weeks ago. And I made a little chandelier out of some pretty Pebbles scrapbook paper for the booth. I think this chandelier would be so fun in a little girls room!!

I have seen a few tutorials on how to make paper chandeliers like this. They all seemed super involved and time consuming. So I tried to stream line this project and I think I really did. I’ll tell you how in just a minute.

Here’s how to make our own Paper and Ribbon Chandelier:

Supplies:

8-10 sheets of 12×12 scrapbook paper

2 different sized circle punches or a craft cutting machine

A sewing machine

Hot glue gun

Wire to hang up the chandelier

And wire to add to the top of the chandelier

A lamp shade

Directions:

Use your craft cutting machine or circle punches to punch out as many circles as you can from your paper.

Then sew the circles, alternating patterns and sizes with your sewing machine.

I sewed the circles in one, continuous loop that measured about 40 feet long. It seems like a lot, but you will need a lot of footage to drape the circles for your chandelier.

Once you have the circles sewn in one, continuous loop – lay it out on the floor of your home and try not to get it tangled up.

Take the fabric off of your lamp shade. You will need a shade that has spokes that holds the shade together. Many cheaper lamp shades don’t have these spokes. You might need to go to a thrift store and find a vintage shade for this project.

Once you have exposed the spokes and wire of the shade, cover the wire up with ribbon. You can use glue dots or hot glue to glue the ribbon onto the spokes and wire of your shade. I used a few different colors of ribbon. And your ribbon should be thin – mine is craft ribbon and it measured about 1/4″ wide.

At the top of the chandelier, run some wire across the top in an X pattern so you will have somewhere to drape the circle length.

Attach some wire to the top of the lampshade and hang it up so you can start draping the sewn circles.

When you have covered up the wires of the lamp shade, start draping the sewn circle length to the chandelier. I just draped the circle length from the X you made with the wire at the top.I used my hot glue gun to hold the sewn paper length in place and I looped the circles evenly from all four corners of the lampshade. Then I went into the center of the lampshade and made four more loops that were a little longer from the center.

I also hot glued the lengths at the top of the shade to hold them in place.

And that’s it! So much easier than using individual lengths of fishing wire and hand placing the paper circles.

And here a a few more chandeliers I have made. I think a chandelier can really make a room! 

DIY Orb Chandelier 

DIY Wood Beaded Chandelier

DIY Beachy Wood Chandelier 

$8 Easy Chandelier Redo

I also spray painted a brass chandelier Sun Yellow at the #1905Cottage – there’s a video showing it being hung up there.

Have you redone a chandelier?
Show us YOUR idea. 

We would love to see it!!! 

Have a beautiful day! 

xoxo

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Guess what: it’s super easy to make one of them for yourself! If you simply want to replace your existing ceiling fixture with one of these, you need to buy three things. Only three things, including a lightbulb!

Here’s everything you need and how to put it together, along with a few tips if you need to run new conduit like I did:

What you need:

• Decorative metal globe in whatever size you like (probably 12-18 inches across). I found mine at HomeGoods.
• Mini Pendant Light Kit (I got mine at Lowe’s. I chose the white finish, but they have a variety of finishes. It was under $20.)
• Light bulb. (Check the package on your pendant light kit; mine had a 60w limit, so I picked up a 60-watt Edison-style bulb at Lowe’s for a unique look)

What to do:

1. Assemble your materials in one place. Grab your screwdriver, pliers, electrical tape, wire nuts, and so forth, too.
2. Turn off the light switch to the light and turn off the power at the breaker. Consult a professional electrician if you have any questions or are unfamiliar with replacing light fixtures. I’m not a professional electrician — I have just replaced a lot of fixtures — so ask an expert!
3. Remove the old light fixture and bracket. There should be a basic electrical ceiling box there.
4. Open the pendant light box and read the instructions. Hold the pendant light fixture up and make sure it will fit in your ceiling box (it should, unless there’s something odd about your ceiling box. I’m not judging your ceiling box if it is odd. Check with your electrician or hardware store if something looks off.)
5. See the white plastic twist-on bracket on the pendant light? (You can see it removed in the left picture above and screwed on in the center and right pictures. Yes, that pendant in those pictures is the bronze color. I changed my mind and bought a white one instead but I had already taken these pictures.) Remove that white plastic twist-on bracket.
6. Here comes the tricky part: find an intersection of bands on your metal globe that is relatively flat and in which the white ceramic light fixture fits fairly snugly. Screw the white plastic bracket onto the fixture until it fits very tightly. If you were extra paranoid you could put a drop of silicone adhesive on the bracket and the fixture. Here’s a closeup of how yours should fit before you screw the bracket on tightly:
7. Now hang your pendant according to the directions in the package. It should take just a bit of wiring and a couple of screws. Put the light bulb in last.
8. You’re done!

Extra things I had to do

Note: check with your local electrical code before you run any electrical conduit or engage in any other fancy shenanigans as I had to.

The original light fixture was on the right wall — right where I was putting my industrial shelves. So I had to move the light fixture to the ceiling. I didn’t have any attic access — this part of the roof isn’t accessible from the attic (it’s part of the original porch). So, since I was going with an industrial aesthetic, I decided to put a plate on the existing wall box, run metal conduit from that box to a surface-mounted new ceiling box, and run the electrical wire through that. It conformed to our electrical code — as far as I can determine — and solved my light location issue.

As you might have guessed, the bright and shiny conduit was a bit much for my pantry, so I painted it all white with the wall and ceiling paint color when I was all done.

* * * * *

That’s it! So easy!

Where might you create a DIY pendant globe light?

You can find out more about how to create the Industrial Pantry Shelves here:

xoxo

The post DIY Industrial Globe Pendant Light! [Easy!] appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

And we thought how fun would it be if we each made one and then shared our tutorials on the same day?? 

Projects are always so much more fun when you do them with a friend! 

We’ve done a few other projects together in the past — our Chevron Rugs, she was so helpful when I made my Giant Valentine’s Subway Art and there’s another BIG project that she helped me with in my bedroom reveal. I can’t wait to show you!!

What a great friend!

So Shelley came over one day and we worked on it. Then she took hers home and we both came up with our own tutorials! They both turned out so well!! I love the way they both look in our homes!!

Here’s the look we liked from ZGallerie

(or from Restoration Hardware), but we didn’t want to spend $500-$2000 to get it. This pic is from a Salt Lake Parade of Homes house:

Here’s the Tutorial: 

Notes on design:

1. The Restoration Hardware version differs from mine in a few ways. First, it has four complete circles — two on the vertical axis (top to bottom) and two on the horizontal axis (left to right). I felt like mine would look better with three on each axis.
2. The crystal ball hanging on the bottom helps the orb hang straight. I experimented with a few different ideas for this — since I didn’t care for the crystal look — and didn’t find anything I loved. So my version omits that.
3. Since I don’t have a welding torch or, really, any idea how to weld things, I had to come up with a different way to connect the wires. I experimented with some glues and epoxies, but none did the trick. So I experimented and decided to simply hook the two ends of the big wire together. I’ll tell you more about this below, but basically I bent each end so that it would hook around the wire it intersects. You may want to practice bending the wire on a piece of scrap wire — I got better at it the more I did!

Here’s a sketch of the overall design:

Here’s what I used (supplies):

• Chandelier (I got mine at Home Depot — it was about $120). I liked the clean lines — and didn’t use the shades on the lights — I wanted it nice and bright! I chose a chandelier with a ring on the top — that certainly made things easier. When you choose a chandelier, if you find one that’s roughly square — meaning it’s as wide as it is tall, or even a little taller than it is wide AND has a ring at the top and the bottom, it will be even easier. If you can find a thrifted chandelier, this project will cost you even less! 

• High-tensile fencing wire for the “orbs.” I used a roll of heavy galvanized steel wire from the fencing section of the hardware store. It was in a large roll of about 170 feet, and cost about $20. 

• Smaller wire to use for the intersections of the larger wire. I used picture hanging wire from that section of the hardware store. I chose the thickest wire I that could easily be bent. I wanted it strong but easy to work with. (Like this kind.)
• Big pliers that can cut the biggest wire
• One or two pair of smaller pliers
• Spray paint for your final painting (mine is gold!), and primer!
• Possibly a protractor or other angle-measuring device (I swear by the Swanson Speedlite Square ($4) for all kinds of things (Lowe’s; Home Depot carries a different brand I don’t like as well)

How-to Steps:

1. Assemble your chandelier. Have it all put together before you start on anything else.  If possible, hang it temporarily from something while you work. You’ll need to know its approximate size before you go further, so

2. Measure how big your orb will be. Grab some wire, or just wave your hands around, and estimate how much space you want between your chandelier and the orb that goes around it. I liked about 3 inches of space on each side. So for mine, the chandelier itself was around 26″ wide, so I figured my orbs need to be about 32″ across.

3. Cut your first circle. You’ll need to be a bit tricky with your measurements. I suggest you start with the three vertical circles — meaning, the ones that go from top to bottom and back again. If your chandelier is like mine, there’s a circle at the top you can use to attach your circles. Here’s the tricky part. You can lay a measuring tape (or two!) on the floor while you measure your wire to make sure it’s the right size.

(I know you are loving my diagrams.)

Tip: You will need to adjust the length of the overlap when you cut the wire while keeping the overall diameter (the space across the circle) the same. For the vertical circles you’ll need to allow for the top ring: for example, my top ring was about 2″ across, so I knew that I needed to have 2″ less overlap for the vertical circles. You will also want to overlap the wire enough to allow for your wire loops. This is trickier than it seems. practice making your wire loops on a few short pieces of your wire: then you’ll know how much to allow for the wire loop. In my case, it took me about 3/4″ to make a good wire loop, so I allowed for an extra 3/4 to 1 inch overlap.

Use your big wire cutters/pliers to cut this to size.

4. Make your first set of loops and test them. This takes a bit of thought. For example, for the first vertical circle I knew it would attach on both ends of the top chandelier circle, so I knew I needed to bend my wire loops to the left and right — so they would wrap around the chandelier top circle. I suggest for all of your wire loops that you bend them in opposite directions, like this:

With a little practice, you can bend your loops more like the bottom than the top — that way the wire coming in is more likely to looks like it’s straight.

How do you bend the wire into hooks? Hold one end of the wire circle in one pair of pliers, and hold the wire about 1/2″ below that with another pair held in the opposite direction, like this:

Bend the hook until it’s closed just enough to allow room to slip the hook around another wire.

(My husband calls these photos “robot dinosaurs fight over robot snake.”)

You may even have to use a pair of giant pliers to push it just a bit farther closed:

It just takes a few tries to get the hang of it.

If you can, try to bend the finished hook a bit off center so that it will connect straighter, rather than going in at the side.

5. Hang your first circle. I suggest hanging them as you go for these first vertical circles. So hang the first circle. You may need to use a tiny bit of the smaller wire to hold the hooked ends in place (use your pliers to close the hook all the way after you attach them).

6. Cut and add hooks to the remaining two vertical wire circles and hang them from the top chandelier circle. Remember to plan your hooks for where they are going to attach at the top so they will fit nicely around the chandelier top circle (remember, they will wrap around sideways). Wrap a bit of the small wire around the bottom where the circles intersect below the center of the chandelier, adjusting them generally where you want them. This is just a temporary wrap so don’t get too worried about it.

Extra tip: In hopes of making my vertical circles hang straighter, I also added a “crossbar” across the top ring as tightly as I could with the thick wire, like this:

(Note that I have some temporary wire on the left side to hold things in place until they’re final. This way I could make adjustments before I did my final, “prettier” wrapping.)

You may want to try something similar.

7. Cut your first horizontal circle. Use the tips above to get it just right. Remember two things: pretty close is good enough — and you bought more than enough wire to be able to make another cut if one gets goofed up!

8. Attach your horizontal circle at the halfway point of one of your vertical circles. Hold it in place with some quick temporary wire wrap (you’ll be doing a final wrap later.

7. Adjust the angles of your three vertical wire circles and wrap them to the first horizontal circle. This is kind of tricky, too…and it involves math! But it’s easy math. Think about your orb from the top — envision it like a Trivial Pursuit game piece.  A circle is 360 degrees, and we will be cutting our circle into six sections (three circles, both sides). So 360 degrees divided by 6 = 60 degrees. Each wire should be at about a 60 degree angle from its neighbor.

Wire wrapping tips: You will find a wrapping look that you like the best. I usually took about 4 or 5 inches of the thinner wire so I would have plenty to hold on to.

(You can follow along from the top left corner of my beautiful diagram.) I started from one corner and went diagonally across, pulled that tight, and went behind and across again in the same place. Then, as you can see in the upper right, I then went under the adjacent wire and then went across again at 90 degrees (perpendicular) to the previous wrap. I wrapped that again (lower left diagram) and then trimmed and tucked the end underneath (middle bottom). Each wrap looked about like the sketch in the bottom right, with two wrapped wires going each direction.

Tip: An easy way to measure your angles when you are adjusting these vertical circles is to use a compass or a tool like the$4 Simpson Speedlite Square: just hold the compass or Speedlite Square at the top of the orb, then look for the part labeled “DEG” (for degrees), at the bottom of the square, like this:

8. Cut and attach the remaining two “horizontal” circles.  I attached one of the circles in the same place I had attached the first horizontal one, then attached the other on the opposite side. Use your same degree-measuring skills and wrapping skills to put these in place. Remember, these will be like an “X” across the orb:

9. Over-wrap the two “horizontal” ends where the hooks are. I wrapped more wire around the hook connectors to help keep them in place and hide them.

10. Adjust your wire circles into their final positions. I moved them around until they looked right, and tried to adjust the circles so they were as round as possible.

11. Cover the top connections and hooks. I tried a few different things and didn’t like any of them. The challenge: many wires going in many different directions. So I used some paintable Sculpt-It air-dry clay to create a ball at the top (available at your local craft/hobby store).

I cut the ball into slices, fit them on, and then smoothed them together with a bit of water to make it round again. The picture below is when I put the pieces onto the top and then I joined them together and smoothed it out into a ball shape.

If your ceiling is tall enough, you may not even need this step. I just wanted to make sure it looked extra finished at the top!

For the connections on the side, I took the smaller size wire and wrapped it neatly around the connections, forming a ball on each side.

12. Prime and Paint. To help the paint adhere, I used a metal primer first, then my gold metallic paint. Let it dry!

13. Hang! We replaced a ceiling fan with an unattractive light kit.

We had to adjust it a few times to get the height right, but we love it!

I have some more pictures of the light in the room, but I can’t show the whole room until the reveal at the Pinterest Party on August 22nd. But I just love it in the room!! I can’t wait to show you how the room turned out!

Be sure to go over to see Shelley’s tutorial too!!

She used a smaller size chandelier for her entryway and she discovered a genius way to camouflage her wires. Her tutorial is awesome!!

Have a Creative Day!!

xoxo

The post Make a DIY Knock-Off Orb Chandelier!! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.

I made a new wood bead chandelier.

I might have a DIY chandelier obesession.

I ordered a box of 1,000 wood beads for this project. And I am so excited to show you the tutorial. I just need to take some pictures and write it up.

(UPDATE: Click here to see the tutorial)

 (here it is at my Cookie Exchange last month)

In the meantime, here are 16 DIY Wood Bead Chandeliers for inspiration! This is a great way to take an inexpensive, or thrifted chandelier and DIY into something fabulous for your home! (my newest chandelier was based on a $2,000 chandelier, and I made it for under $200 – yay)

Beaded Chandelier Tutorial @ My Simple Obsession

Gold Beaded Chandelier @ Keeping Up With The Manns

Beachy DIY Chandelier @ Design Indulgences

Hanging Planter to DIY Beaded Light @ Gus and Lula

DIY Wood Chandelier @ Kikis List

Natural Wood Bead Chandelier @ Sixth Street Design School

Colorful Beaded Chandelier @ Makely School for Girls

Dollar Store Chandelier DIY @ Dollar Store Crafts

Here’s the Wood Bead Chandelier I made for my guest room

Beaded Chandelier DIY @ Sawdust and Paper Scraps

Painted Bead Chandelier @ Padgett Hoke

Hot Pink Beaded Chandelier @ Brassy Apple

Embellished Beaded Chandelier @ The Inspired Room

Spray Paint and add beads to an existing Chandelier @ Tatertots & Jello

Party Bead Chandelier @ The Hunted Interior

Wood Bead Chandelier DIY @ My 3 Monsters

Have you ever changed up a light fixture? 

Leave a link to your project – I’d love to see it!!

Have a Wonderful Day! 

xox

PS — It’s Friday!!

Time for The Weekend Wrap Up Party!!

Come over and share YOUR ideas.

The party starts at 6 pm MST.

The post DIY Wood Bead Chandelier and 16 Beaded Chandelier Tutorials! appeared first on Tatertots and Jello.