Artist Rosemary Watson spruces up a nondescript bedroom with two blueprint-paper lamps and a headboard made from fluorescent-lamp tube guards dribbled with paint and mounted on the wall with Velcro®. Lamps
Materials:
Blueprint paper (from a graphics shop)
Awl threads (available in 3' lengths; have 9" cut off each)
Glue gun and glue sticks
Thin-gauge wire
Wire-cutters
Scissors, pencil, ruler
Hanging light-fixture kit
Cup hook (if not included in light kit)
Wall anchor
Drill
Phone clips
- Make a tepee-shaped frame of the three awl threads, anchoring the base with a glue gun. When the base is steady, wrap wire around each joint to secure.
- Lay the frame on the back of the blueprint paper and trace around the outside to make a template. Then use a ruler to trace 1/4" outside the line, and cut out along the outer line. Cut three pieces.
- Glue the paper templates to the frame (the extra 1/4" will allow you to wrap the paper around the wire).
- Drill a hole in the ceiling where you wish to hang the light, insert the anchor and screw in the cup hook.
- Hang the light fixture from the cup hook (be sure to tie a knot in the cord).
- Attach the shade, large end up, by wrapping wire around the corner joints and the knot in the cord.
- Nail phone clips to the wall to secure the cord.
Headboard
Materials:
Ten 4' fluorescent lamp tube guards (less than $2 each at a hardware store)
Syringe
Silver spray paint
Pebeo® Liquid Crystal and Gel Crystal glass paint in desired colors
Self-stick Velcro tabs
- Remove the plastic caps from the ends of the fluorescent lamp tube guards, and spray paint them silver. Let dry.
- Fill the syringe with paint (figure A), tilt a tube guard, and squeeze a dribble of paint into it (figure B). Let the paint drip down the inside of the tube, and turn the tube at intervals to change the direction of the paint. Add another paint color or two and repeat the process. Paint all the tubes in the same manner (figure C).
- When all the tube guards have been painted and are dry, use self-sticking Velcro tabs to attach the tubes to the wall vertically in a pleasing pattern, and replace the silver-painted tube ends (figure D).
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