There was a time when I was drooling over 'La Voliere Pendant' the quirky birdcage style lampshades. As beautiful as they are, their prices get as beautiful as they get..
This happened few years back and still fresh in my memory, the day I decided to pull the plug on this one and go for it.. Or should I say the day we decided to make one ourselves :)
But how were we going to start with it, we needed some ideas for the props to use and I stumbled upon blogger (Melanie Lissack's) page and she had recreated it so well and I thought this could be the perfect guide for us to try our hands on it.
(The fun part of this custom lampshade is, we can switch the birds as we like)
You'll need:
Cooper floral mesh
-US
-UK
Working bulb holder if it's for a lampshade, along with a base (The one we used is from Ikea)
Lampshade frame to roll the copper wireframe
Clip on birds
-US
-UK
Plier
Gloves
How to do it:
-First, need to determine the size of the lampshade, so we can cut the copper wire to length. The easiest way is to just toll the copper wire around the frame and mark the point to cut. Leave an extra inch for cutting, so there is enough material for any adjustments.
-Measure the height of the shade's frame and mark the height to the copper wire for cutting. One tip here could be to start the measurement for height from a full square of the frame. And while cutting to height leave half an inch each to the top and bottom of the wire, this is important for the next step
-Ensure that you wear protective gloves when working with the copper wire
-Now, take the lampshade frame and start rolling the copper wire around it. Align the full square to the the top part of the lampshade and use a plier to twist the wire into the frame until they are secured.
-Follow the same process for the bottom part of the wireframe, and try to ensure that it is tight but not out off shape when reinforcing to the lampshade
-Now that we have the structure ready, its go time to clip the birds and ready to use
Voila, the custom birdcage lampshade is ready to be used as a table lamp or pendant light.
-One final touch we added recently was to include two sticks in the middle (which passes via both side) and clip couple of birds on them.
(As Ross would say it 'Ornamental Bird Cage Lamp... Large', sorry had to make this reference to keep my husband happy :) )
(Thankfully, I had one proper photo of it as a pendant light. This was taken just weeks before we vacated our old place.)
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