The Clinking Chandelier

Glass bottles and golden ribbons make a clinking glass chandelier.

Glass, gold & light – these are 3 elements which can definitely up any house to give it a rich & glamorous feel. And in our next project we decided to take all three of them together. Time to exude exuberance.

Our starting point was whole lot of these mini-sized perfume bottles, which had abstract floral golden motifs on them. So golden became our obvious choice to supplement the bottles. The idea was simple: to bunch up the bottles together in random fashion, so that when they are slightly touched, they make this rippling-clinking noise effect. Music to the ears I tell you. And through the glass-bunch pass a hanging bulb, that would help give a shimmery reflect.

We used golden ribbons to tie the bottles at their neck and a holed utensil lid was used as our support a   suspender, from which the bottles would hang. The idea was just to randomly tie the bottles at varying     heights, so as to fill the bulk, yet let the bottles be freely inter-spaced.  
                                                    

Once all the bottles were tied, we suspended a light fixture from the center hole. And we were done!

The chandelier was such a quick work, as it just required tying the bottles and hanging them up. And the results are definitely quite richly dramatic.

In dark nights, the glimmer will cast. And with blowing winds, the clinking will last.

Tying and hanging is the easiest craft exercise to undertake. You basically require 3 elements totally – 1. A supporting body on top, 2. A suspender (rope/ribbon) and 3. Quirky elements that could be tied & hanged. A kid’s gym or a suspended fish-tank; the possibilities and themes to make are endless. 

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.