Card Away

Visiting cards transformed into a 2 way lamp

One of my fellow colleagues just quit. Upon a person’s quitting a plethora of office material is discarded off: trash for others, but stash for us! There were quite a few of her visiting cards left behind. I took a few of them and decided to use them as a starting material for my next project.

 I got these nice off-white visiting cards back home, and I started toying with it; trying to figure out what to do with them. The idea that struck me is to make a wreath of these cards, and so I started making it by pasting one card on top of another at sequential-acute angles. Unfortunately, I realized that I am gonna fall short of cards to complete the wreath circle.

In a fix, I again start toying with the 4/5^th complete circular card wreath. I tried a few different positioning, till I realized that coning this incomplete circle would be perfect. A beautiful lamp-skirt could be made of the eventual conical structure. So I made the card cone and made it sit on a proportionately sized cane basket (taken from a flower bouquet present found at home) and added a standing bulb into the basket.

After finishing the lamp, I once again started toying with the cone of cards. I just flipped it over and kept it back on top of the bulb-basket-base. And another beautiful lamp is suddenly created, having its skirting, fanning upwards.

The golden light diffusing off the lamp in either of the set-ups looks so elegant. Just a mere change in positioning can add such different yet equally beautiful dimensions.

One thing I learnt from this project – “always keep toying around!”

Before discarding off old stuff, always do think if that item can be utilized in another fashion. With just a little creative thinking and manipulation many wonders can be achieved.