Dishy lamps

Jim makes some cute lamps from Ikea.

He writes, "The first is a lamp I made for my sister�s kitchen from an Ordning colander. I�m pretty sure the base is from someplace else (Target). I have never lived within 2 hours drive of an Ikea, so I tend to stock up cool-looking stuff in hopes that I find a use for it.

Pretty straightforward project, but with especially pleasing results due to the industrial look of the colander - the long, straight sides are particularly pleasing, I think. For quick and easy colander-to-lampshade conversion, it is best to look for a colander that already has a hole in the center. Otherwise, drilling will be required. In this case, I only had to enlarge the hole to fit the harp of the lamp base.

The second is of a lampshade made from old Art history slides - my Father-in-Law taught Art History but long ago switched to computer presentation. In this particular picture, the lamp base is also probably from Target, but it should work just fine using an Alang base. The slides are attached together with jewelry-making split rings through holes make with a tiny hole punch. I have made a couple of versions of this lampshade as gifts, and gave up on the hole punch. Now, I can drill through ten slides at a time with my Dremel tool and drillpress. The slides are attached to the frame of a lampshade. The trickiest part of this project is making sure to find a lampshade frame that attaches to the lamp base from the top - most inexpensive shades actually attach at the bottom of the shade - since the web of slides does not provide and structural support, this doesn�t work too well.

And, of course, like every table lamp in our home, the light bulbs are Ikea Sparsam compact fluorescents. I like the color and output of the bulbs and the 'looks like a real light bulb' outer shell.