DIY is a great way to turn seemingly useless stuff into great resources for daily living. Lamps are a handy addition to any home, and green lamps are even better. Check out these few really innovative DIY lamps you can make yourself virtually out of nothing:
1. Lamp from Wine Bottles
Who said drinking’s bad? These DIY options give you an excuse to polish off that bottle of sparkling. Just get hold of a cork stopper lamp kit and fix a lampshade on top of it. You can fill up the bottle with some shiny beads to funk it up further.
2. Simple Oil Lamp
This is the easiest one to burn up. Get hold of an empty juice bottle and pour in some olive oil and pack it with some cotton. Take the metal cap and a make a slit in it for the cotton to go through, with a little bit of the cotton poking out. Then fill it up with oil. Get light for half a day.
3. Plastic Jug Lamp
Save those chopsticks from last night’s Chinese take-out, and also get hold of a gallon plastic jug. You have a cool hanging lamp powered with CFLs perfect for your living room or office.
4. Paper/Plastic Cup Decorative Lamp
Empty out your post-party trash bag and pile up your paper cups. You can glue them together after cutting out the bottom. This is probably the quickest DIY lamp to make. Now just add a nice CFL color bulb of your choice and you’re all set for the moody bedside lamp.
5. Fluorescent Tube-Lights
Even old tubes can be made into new lamps. Toronto design collective Castor Canadensis has wound-up old fluorescent tubes and constructed a neat, slender lamp.
6. Water Bottle Chandelier
Here is another very cool design made from discarded water bottles. This plastic bunch can hang in the middle of your room, and guess what – no more fears of those bulky chandeliers crashing on your head.
7. Cocktail Umbrella Lamps
There’s no such thing as too many martinis anymore. A night out at the local bar can help you pile up a bunch of those decorative umbrellas. Then all you need to do is glue them and layer it up with a fire retardant. Fix a CFL bulb and watch them glow.
8. Blender Lamp
The old blender lying in the kitchen corner may not be serving you up with juice anymore, but you’ll forget that it ever could when you see this quirky make. This is brilliant piece of innovation which charms with its oddity.
9. Hanging Teacups Lamp
Wire those old teacups up from your showcase and turn them upside down in a cluster. Or if you don’t want to part with the neat bone-china, just pick up a horde of them up from the nearby thrift store.
10. Plastic Spoon Chandelier
The folks at Studio Verissimo of Portugal went for too many picnics and put those spoons to good use. Just wash them and string them together. They even got the glitter of a real crystal piece.