Photo Slide Lamp

 

At the Reuse Store at school, they sell old photo slides from different classes. They are really cool to look at, but you can only really look at them by holding them up to a light source. I bought a bunch of them and decided to use them to make a lamp shade. We need more light in our apartment, so an extra lamp would be really useful. Online, I saw some really cool-looking projects that inspired this one.

I found an old lamp my cousin had - it's really ugly, with a fabric Spiderman shade.While the projects I looked at online used circular-based lamp shades, the Spiderman shade is square. It actually worked out better than I anticipate it would have with a circular base - the slides fit almost perfectly, with 4x4 slides per side.

After removing the Spiderman fabric from the base, I used a pick tool to poke holes in each corner of each slide. The cardboard slides were slightly difficult to pierce through, but I managed to make holes if I pressed hard enough. I had a bunch of plastic slides, too, but I couldn't poke a hole in a corner without cracking the slide. So I heated the metal pick tool on the stove until it was red-hot, and it easily melted holes through the corners. I bought a few packs of jump rings to connect the slides to each other and to the lamp base. I decided not to removed the dangling Spiderman pull, so he adds a little bit of character to the lamp.

 

 

I am really happy with how this project turned out. It's nice to sit in our living room with the lamp turned on, and with Christmas lights still dangling on the walls. The colors on the slides reflect off the white table and on the wood wall, which are pretty to look at. With the light on, I like to look at all the slides side by side.

<3 Mandy