Ever wondered what to do with those cool plastic bowls you can find at the dollar store? The quick and easy answer? Make a lamp with them like Mark Montano does. Our friend Mark is the King of Dollar Store Crafts, and he constantly amazes us with his innovative (yet cheap) craft ideas. In this video, you can make a pendant lamp with some dollar store bowls and a few other supplies. My favorite quote of the video? “Let’s face it, I can’t resist the dollar store,” — Mark Montano. [how to make a dollar store pendant light]

Project Materials:

• 2 bowls, $2
• Drill & drill bit, on hand
• Cord & socket kit, $1 and up
• Low-heat light bulb, $1
• Electrical tape, on hand or $1
• E-6000, the best glue in the universe, on hand
• Craft knife, on hand or $1
• 1/4 yard of matching fabric, on hand or $1
• Scissors, on hand
• Spray adhesive, on hand or about $5

Total: $4 and up

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Both whimsical and modern at the same time, this ping pong ball pendant lamp is one of the most impressive and innovative upcycles we’ve see in quite a while.  (The balls can be attached around the frame from an old lamp shade; rescue one that is stained or dented by removing the covering, leaving only the wire structure of the frame.  Thrift stores and yard sales are great places to look for them if you don’t already have one on hand.)  Dollar Tree sells ping pong balls in packages of 8 for $1, and it took about 180 balls to make the lamp shown.  The number you will need depends on the size of the lamp shade frame you use as a base!  The project by Léa Baert originally appeared in Marie Claire Idées, a French magazine; Jan at Poppytalk shared an English translation of the process. [how to make a ping pong ball pendant lamp]

Project estimate:

• Ping pong balls, about $22
• Lamp shade frame, on hand or $1 and up
• Spray paint, on hand or $1 and up
• Fishing line or string, on hand
• Wire, on hand or $1 and up
• Lamp kit, about $5 and up

Total:  about $27 and up

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I’ve seen a lot of wire basket lighting ideas lately, and I have to say I love the rustic, farmhouse-y look of it.  (Not to mention the funky shadows these type of fixtures throw on the walls!)  Melody from Crafty Butt came up with a design that has a dollar store twist: a wire trash can!  With a little paint and fabric, she transformed it into a trendy, shabby chic fixture perfect for a little girl’s nursery or a whimsical cottage.  [how to make a trash can pendant lamp]

Project estimate:

• Trash can, $1
• Spray paint, on hand or $1 and up
• Fabric, on hand or $1 and up
• Hanging lamp kit, about $4

Total:  $5 and up

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There’s something about lamps made with trash that I just love! I have featured a few of them before (such as the egg carton lamp), and I think they are so much fun. When you take a single element and repeat it, it becomes art. Or close to art! This lamp, which I featured over at my other site, Decor Hacks, was made with 70 little colorful yogurt cups and a whole bunch of jump rings. And probably a little bit of patience, too! [make a yogurt lamp]

You need a whole bunch of Dan-o-nino yogurts, which one reader pointed out can be purchased as low as about 10 cents each. Keep your eye out for sales, and prepare to eat a lot of yogurt! You can get an inexpensive pendant lamp kit from Ikea or your local home improvement store.

Project Estimate:

• 70 Dan-o-nino yogurt cups, $7
• Pendant lamp kit, $4
• Jump rings or chain maille rings, $5
• Old lampshade or reshaped hanger for ring, on hand

Total: $16

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We were excited to see that Aunt Peaches was one of our randomly chosen secret stashbusters because she’s got an uber-quirky style we can’t help but adore.  True to form, her first project is as funky as can be:  The Pee Wee’s Playhouse Lamp, or if you prefer, the Hebrew Dinosaur Explosion.  Kaboom!  She made it using one of the most commonly stashed craft supplies, craft foam.  It’s a bright and colorful idea that could be adapted to fit many different themes, and looks great with or without a lamp kit.  [how to make a Pee Wee’s Playhouse inspired pendant lamp]

Project estimate:

• Plastic baskets, on hand or $1 and up
• Craft foam, on hand or $1
• Foam stickers, on hand or $1
• Pipe cleaners, on hand or $1
• Plastic drinking straws, on hand or $1
• Hole punch, on hand
• Hanging lamp kit (optional), about $4

Total:  Free and up

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Make a quick and easy pendant lamp out of plastic Easter eggs, battery-operated tea lights, and string. What could be easier?  These over-sized plastic eggs are faceted and reminded me of glass pendant lamps, so I decided to make my inspiration a reality. I took the super-simple route to making these, so this is a perfect craft for anyone from kids on up. These lamps would be at home in a little girl’s room, but if you used a single color of eggs, the lamp would become decidedly more sophisticated.

It took me about ten minutes to make this.

Project Materials:

• 3 oversized plastic eggs, $1
• 3 battery-operated tea lights, $1
• String, embroidery floss, or fishing line, on hand or $1

Total: $2 and up

A note about supplies:

Eggs: I found these over-sized plastic Easter eggs in Target’s $1 spot. If you wanted to stick with a particular color scheme, you could buy three packages of eggs so your lamp could be all blue, all pink, or all yellow. Smaller eggs (regular-sized plastic eggs) would also probably work, and might be easier to find. It would be cool to do a light fixture with a whole bunch of smaller eggs!

If you want to make a lamp with these particular eggs, I’d suggest rushing out to Target to find them as soon as possible, as things in the dollar spot are seasonal and sell out quickly. Dollar Tree also has a few different kinds of over-sized eggs.

Lights: The battery-operated tea lights have an orange flame-like color and they flicker, so these really end up looking like a lantern. For a brighter, cleaner light, look for a small LED light in the electronics section of the dollar store.

To make:

1. Cut three lengths of string. To determine the length of string, find the place you want to hang the light and measure the distance from the ceiling. Double the length and add two inches. Vary the three string lengths slightly so the eggs hang at different heights.

My string was about 24″ long. It’s better to cut your string too long because you can always re-knot it to adjust the length shorter.

2. Thread the two ends of string through the holes on the top of the egg. Tie them together inside the egg. Repeat for all eggs.

3. Turn tea lights on and place in bottom section of egg. Connect eggs together.

4. Hang from a ceiling or wall hook.

5. To turn off, unscrew eggs and turn off tea lights.

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Can you guess what this stylish light fixture is made of? Give up? Manila folders and bamboo skewers! And it’s oh-so-cheap to make. Even if you don’t have any manila folders or skewers on hand (come on, doesn’t everyone have a few of those laying around?), you will be able to make this project for less than $3.

My friend Jeanette is a crafty superstar, and made this lantern; when she posted photos on Facebook, I asked her if I could post about here. She did me one better and wrote a fabulous tutorial! Thanks for the great tutorial, Jeanette! You can visit her cooking blog: Off The Cuff Cooking.

Japanese-Style Lantern Tutorial

by Jeanette Strole Parks, Off The Cuff Cooking

Time:
3-4 hours (including dry time for glue)

Materials:

• Seven standard size Manila folders, $1 or on hand
• 12 bamboo chopsticks or wooden skewers, $1 or on hand
• Colored tissue paper, or rice paper, or other type of decorative textured paper, $1 or on hand
• Craft glue (like Alene’s Tacky Glue), on hand
• Decoupage medium (like Mod Podge), on hand
• Hot glue gun and hot glue sticks, on hand
• Pencil, on hand
• Ruler, on hand
• Scissors, craft knife and/or Paper cutter, on hand

Total: FREE to $3

1. First, trim the curved corners and tabs off the side of all seven of the folders with a paper cutter, or craft knife, and straight edge.  The width of each folder from spine to edge should be 8″ after the curved corners are trimmed off.

2. Reserve three of these folders, and cut one at a time perpendicular to the spine of the folder, so that you’re cutting four equal-sized strips which are folded in half at the spine.  The strips will be approximately 3 inches in width, but measure the width and divide by 4 to get exact measurement.  You will have a total of twelve strips, which will form the accent sections above and below the main body of the lamp shade.

3. Now, take one of your full-sized folders, and open it up flat on your work area.  Spread some light beads of glue across one side of the open folder, and then take another folder, and open it up, and lay one side on top of the side that you just put glue on.

Keep repeating this process until you’ve used all the four whole folders.  The last panel should be glued to the very first panel on the first folder you started with, making a complete square that you can carefully stand up and let dry for a while until it’s sturdy.

Repeat this process with the twelve strips you cut earlier, making three squares.

4. One of the smaller squares will be the anchoring piece for the pendant-light kit, so before proceeding to any other step, take time to measure the top of your  light bulb-housing to get an idea of it’s diameter.  You will make a “grid” of criss-crossed skewers, which will create an inner square opening small enough to keep the light bulb housing from slipping higher up but big enough to allow the electrical plug to fit through.  So estimate this measurement,  and jot it down if you need to.

5. Find the middle of each square section with the help of a ruler. Mark the vertical and horizontal center points.  Make light pencil marks to mark out two equidistant spots from the center and then puncture holes there, and also repeat this on the opposite side.  Use an awl, skewer, or whatever you can find to help you puncture the holes for the criss cross wood skewers to pass through. (See pictures.)  On the adjacent sides the markings will have to be moved down about a quarter of an inch to take into account the thickness of the skewers/ chop sticks so they can overlap each other.  Erase the pencil markings so they don’t show through the tissue paper.  Test putting the four skewers into this piece to make sure they fit, and then remove them again so you can decoupage on the tissue paper to these smaller squares. Let dry for a while, and then insert the skewers through the holes again, and use pliers to pinch off the sharp ends of the skewers.

6. Next, use decoupage medium to cover the outside of your lamp shade with tissue paper, or some kind of textured rice paper.  You can crinkle it slightly for a textured effect.  Give yourself a little margin on the top and bottom to crease and fold “into” the lamp to finish the top and bottom edges. Tissue paper gets more opaque when it is layered, so mind that you don’t accidentally overlap it, if you don’t want darker areas on your shade.

[ Do keep in mind that the manila folders are very opaque and golden-toned when lit, so for best results I’d use light, warm colors of paper on the outside. One more word of caution: my first prototype lamp turned out quite nice, and I was very pleased with it, until I realized that there were printed logos on the inside of the folders that were shining through the paper when the lamp was lit.  So take that into consideration, and try to find folders that don’t have obvious printed logos on them, or else plan to paint a design or paste  some kind of cloth ribbon around the middle of the lamp where the logo is to conceal it. ]

7. Heat up your hot glue gun, and line up all the pieces on the table.  Study the picture of the finished lamp shade to see how to space them out.  There is one square on top, and then the skewered-square is second down from the top so that the light-bulb housing is dropped into the middle of the lamp as much as possible. In the middle is the main body of the lamp, and then one more square at the bottom.

8. When the glue gun is heated up, start from the “bottom” of the lamp shade.  Line up a skewer or chop stick with the bottom corner of the bottom-most square, and hot glue it on the inside corner edge, and work your way around with the other three sticks.

9. Now slip the open ends of the skewers up into the main body of the lamp, and glue them into the inside corners.  Now you will have used up four of the chop sticks or skewers.

10. Then turn your lamp around and glue the next four skewers into the top half of the inside edges of the main part of the lamp so that they extend out about 7″ above the edge of the main part of the lamp.

11. Leave about an inch of visible wood skewer, and slip on the square that has the criss-cross skewer construction.  Glue them inside the corners, taking care to space it evenly on all four corners so it doesn’t look crooked.

12.  Finish up with the top-most square, and glue the ends of the skewers into place.

13. Thread the plug-end of your light-bulb kit through the bottom of the lamp shade, and up through the middle of the criss-crossed skewers.  The end of the light kit should stop there, if you’ve measured correctly, and suspend down from that point.  Hook up your light with a  hook screwed into your window sill or ceiling.

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Natalie at Vegetablog made a paper lampshade for a lamp using her Silhouette SD craft cutter machine. She used 10 pieces of vellum paper cut with a bubble pattern she designed, then overlapped the papers and attached them to a pendant light. There’s no doubt a craft cutter will make this project simpler, but if you have a few hours to spare, you can do it with a craft knife, too. [how to make a paper bubble lampshade] [via]

A note about flammability: Natalie added a small cage at the top of the pendant light to keep the paper away from the bulb. If you make a project like this, please take precautions to keep the bulb away from the paper. One of the commenters on Natalie’s site suggested using a product called Flame Free, which is a spray you can use to help make things you use in crafts flame retardant.

Project Estimate:

• 10 pieces of vellum, about $10
• Craft cutting machine or craft knife, on hand
• Pendant lamp kit, $4 at IKEA

Total: $14

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I’ve seen just about everything done with placemats, but I’ve never seen this! Sarah at StepThruCrazy made a pendant lampshade from three vinyl placemats. Wow! She even wrote a tutorial so we could all make one for ourselves. The dollar store is a fabulous resource for placemats, so check for them next time you go. [how to make a hanging placemat pendant lamp]

Project Estimate:

• 3 vinyl placemats, $3
• Hot glue gun & sticks, on hand
• String/strong twing, on hand

Total: $3 and up (add a pendant lamp kit from IKEA for about $3)

p.s. Help me print CROQ zine – pledge $5 and reserve your copy of this craft magazine! We have already raised over $1000.

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Come see this amazing transformation! Amanda from The Hand Me Down House took a $15 Craigslisted light fixture and turned it from a dated lantern-style box into an updated light inspired by a Pottery Barn design. You will thrill to her cleverness, trust me! This is a true example of Dollar Store Crafting: finding something you like, and finding a way to make it for a fraction of the price. [how to make a PB-Inspired Lamp]

Before: Boxy Lamp

Project Estimate:

• Old light fixture, $15
• S-hooks, $1.09
• 3 one-foot sections of chain, $1.62
• 3/14″ 24 gauge steel hanger strap, $1.64
• Large vase, $10
• Ribbon, on hand or $1
• Paint, on hand
• Gorilla glue, on hand

Total: $29.34 (compare to PB’s $269)
Savings: $239

You could save even more money if you already have an old light fixture hanging around (I have one in my garage). Also, Amanda pointed out that the PB lamp glass looks like an inverted glass cake cloche–using one would be another awesome option!

Found this project via the CSI Project! Such a fun site!

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