Sunday afternoon crafts from Friday night's bottles

You have spend Friday night polishing off that bottle of booze with your best mates, on Saturday you couldn't even face the mess you have left in the kitchen  but wait...before you start throwing away those empty bottles on Sunday, thing about what fabulous things your could make from them!

Booze Bottle Lamp

My mate Corrine has always had a sense of style that's inspired me since we started uni together - from her Marlin Monroe picture in her dorm room in first year to the very cool new black and white theme which has started to transform her livingroom. She was the one who showed me the wonders of a Gin & Tonic so after a fun night in the flat I kept the bottle and hatched a plan to make her a present (don't get too excited Cozza, it all goes horribly wrong)

Step 1
I started by soaking the bottle in hot water until the labels fell off. This also helped to clean out the bottle.

It's up to you whether you want to do this part as you might prefer the look of your bottle with the label still on. Leave your bottle to dry upside down as you down want to mix electricals with water. and when dry you will be ready to start.

You will need:

• 1 empty bottle 
• wire
• plug
• light fitting
• wire cap (for earth wire if your light fitting is plastic)
• drill piece for ceramics (must be a larger diameter than your wire)
• glue gun
• protective gear (minimum requirements - goggles and mask)

Step 2

Get suited up and put your goggles on! You are going to drill glass so make sure you are safe!

Step 3

Lie your bottle down on it's front. If you think you might struggle to hold and drill it then ask someone to help you out.

PLEASE BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU DO THIS - otherwise this might happen :(

Sorry Corrine, I really did want to make you a present but it wasn't to be this time - we will just need to drink another bottle YAY silver lining and all that

Step 3.5

Get another bottle

Step 4
Do a happy dance when you manage to drill a hole in the bottle without breaking it

Step 5
Feed your cable through the hole and up through the opening on your bottle

Step 6

BE CAREFUL WHEN WIRING THE LIGHT! 

This part is very dangerous, if you wire the light incorrectly, then you could electrocute yourself so please Google how to do this before you start.

I took my piece of wire and striped it back as required. I then hooked it up to the light fitting and put a wire cap on the earth wire. 

Note: you only need to connect the earth wire to the fitting if it is metal. My fitting is plastic so I just capped it off - do NOT leave any loose wires hanging without capping them.

Step 7
When the light fitting is in place, put a bit of glue round the top of the bottle to keep it in place...again be very careful not to get any hot glue on the wires or metal connectors in your fitting!

Step 8
Put your lampshade on and screw the white plastic bit of the fitting back on to keep it in place. Then put your light bulb in and turn it on!!!

I tried it with a few different shades before I settled on one but I thought they all looked nice.

The final result works really well with in our livingroom (is it bad that it makes me kinda happy the Gin bottle broke tehe)

Oh - and if you don't want to make your own, then please feel free to send us some booze and I'd be quite happy to make you one with the empty after I've drank our way through it!

I'll be back xx

Bring your photographs to life

As you may has got by now I love photographs and this tutorial by Ashley Ann made me smile so much! I love the idea of personalising a lampshade with my friends and family.

  Photo lampshade by Ashley Ann

After a bit more digging I found some more tutorials for something similar:

                        

             Photo lampshade by Somedaycrafts       Film slide lampshade by PetaPixel

          

             Scenic photo lampshade by Fototiller             Photo lampshade by Susan Wasinger

Out of all of them though, this one is the simplest so if you are looking for one that is quick and easy then this is the tutorial for you

Photo lampshade by seventeen

I'll be back xx

Where do the weeks go?!?!

I have been up and down the country over the last couple of weeks and it's amazing how quickly time flies!
Sorry for my sudden disappearance but I'm back with a vengeance and this week we will carry on with the lighting theme we never quite got round to!

 As always I wanted to start the week off with something simple to get you started, so I went searching the web for more amazing tutorials and came across this one

Button Lampshade - 99crafting

All you need is: 

• a lampshade
• LOADS of buttons 
• a glue gun

Start off on the edge with one of your buttons and then just keep building up the pattern until you have covered as much of the lampshade as you wish.

There are so many options for this idea - you could copy what they have done in this image and just go a bit crazy with colours or you can pick a couple and make more of a patterned effect.

I'm definitely going to give this one a go and I'll love to see any of your attempts as well so let me know if you try it out!

I'll be back xx

Lights, Camera, Action...

I've had fun with the upcycle theme this week so I thought I would merge the last post of this week with next week's theme of Lighting!

Vintage Camera Light

I love vintage cameras, especially the kind you see in the movies used by journalist with the massive flash bulbs. I picked this one up on ebay and it's called a Brownie Hawkeye if you want to make one the same but I'm sure you could use most vintage camera's and get an amazing effect every time.

What you'll need

• Vintage Camera
• light fitting
• wire
• plug
• wire cap (for earth wire if your light fitting is plastic)
• glue gun
• Dremel with a drill piece for cutting plastic
• Protective gear (minimum requirements - goggles and mask)

Step 1 - Dismantle the Flash

Start by separating the flash from the camera and taking it apart, removing any metal pieces from the plastic so it's easier to cut. My flash was easily separated in two by removing a screw but if yours isn't and you want to hide the cable for the light then you will need to cut it in half.

Step 2 - Suit Up

The next part involves drilling plastic so make sure you have on goggles and a mask so you don't inhale any harmful fumes. Also it's very messy so clear anything that you don't want covered in plastic shavings out the way

Step 3 - Drill holes for the light fitting

You'll then need to cut holes in the flash casing so that the light fitting can be inserted. I used my boyfriends dremel - I'm not sure what the drill piece is called but here is a picture of it.

I cut a larger hole in the silver casing until the metal piece of the light fitting could fit through

Then I cut a hole in the bottom of the back part of the flash casing and enlarged the hole on the front at the top as much as I could without touching the edges

I also had to trim down the light fitting as the middle rim made it too large for the flash casing.

By the time you are finished you should have something that looks like the image below

Step 4 - Insert your light fitting

BE CAREFUL WHEN WIRING THE LIGHT! 

This part is very dangerous, if you wire the light incorrectly, then you could electrocute yourself so please Google how to do this before you start.

I took my piece of wire and striped it back as required. I then hooked it up to the light fitting and put a wire cap on the earth wire. 

Note: you only need to connect the earth wire to the fitting if it is metal. My fitting is plastic so I just capped it off - do NOT leave any loose wires hanging without capping them.

I then put the light fitting through the front of the flash casing from the inside and then put the silver lamp shade on the front, making sure that the light fitting is far enough out of the shade that you can still put a bulb in and out of the fitting. Once it's all in place, glue the lamp shade to the flash casing. The holes made for the light fitting are only large enough to allow the fitting to squeeze through so that it stays in place and doesn't wobble around.

I then put the other end of the wire through the hole I made in the bottom of the back part of the casing and then wired up the plug. This is an important step to do before adding the plug, otherwise you won't be able to close up the front and back of the flash casing.

I added some glue to the front edge of the casing and then placed the back piece back on so that everything is intact again.

Taking one of the original screws, I screwed the flash back into the camera so it was all in one piece again

Step 5 - And then there was light

All that is left to do is put a bulb in the lamp and switch it on!

If you would like any more help with doing your own Camera Lamp then please get in contact by commenting on this post or emailing me at craftalavista@gmail.com

I'll be back xx