Amazing lamp made from plastic bottles: tools, materials, step-by-step instructions

The HouseChief editorial staff continues the series of publications with the hashtag #Best House, which means it's time for another amazing, and at the same time, simple homemade product. Being in self-isolation, many fall into depression due to a sharp change in the usual way of life. To prevent this from happening to you, it is worth doing useful things for which there is not enough time in everyday life. The author of the YouTube channel offers his own version of how to distract himself. "Ideas at Leisure", who created not just an amazing lamp from plastic bottles, but rather even a masterpiece.

Read in the article

1 Tools and materials that will be needed to make a lamp
2 Preparation of parts of the future plastic luminaire
- 2.1 Making feathers from the resulting blanks
3 Luminaire base fabrication: using aluminum
4 Backlight installation, work with Chinese LED garland
5 Branch painting and what materials to use for this
6 Assembling lampshades for each LED bundle
7 What should be the lamp from plastic bottles and garlands
8 Checking the performance of a luminaire made of plastic bottles
9 Summing up the work done

Tools and materials that will be needed to make a lamp

Everything you need to make a lamp can be found in almost any home. All that is needed from the tool are pliers, scissors and a hot rod glue gun. The material also does not differ in variety. You need to prepare:

thick insulated aluminum wire (for the base);
thin aluminum wire (to create branches);
paper rope or rag tape;
Chinese garland (colors don't matter);
plastic bottles from under the milk.

Amazing lamp made from plastic bottles — Here is all the material you need to make a plastic lamp.

Preparation of parts of the future plastic luminaire

The first step is to make the elements lampshades per lamp from plastic bottles. To do this, it is necessary to cut off the upper (tapering) part from the bottle, after which the walls of the remaining "glass" are divided into 2 parts along. Now it remains to cut the plastic into identical rectangles, which will be the blanks for today's homemade products.

Rectangular plastic blanks are cut with scissors

Making feathers from the resulting blanks

Now the magic begins. On the resulting blanks, you need to round off the edges, then cut small triangles along the edges. The gaps between them also require preparation. Using scissors, cuts should be made on them every 0.5–1 mm. As a result, a kind of feather villi is obtained. As a result, you will get an already beautiful product, but it is still far from the end of the work. A lot of such feathers will be required (the more, the better).

These are such beautiful feathers should be made of plastic

Luminaire base fabrication: using aluminum

The lamp itself will be made in the shape of an exotic tree branch. Thick aluminum wire will be used as a barrel. It can be bent at your discretion. But outgrowths will be made from a thin wire. Aluminum needs to be wound on the "trunk", from it to make branches. Pliers will help in this work. In general, aluminum is very soft, which means that there should be no difficulties at this stage.

Scions can be easily made from thin aluminum with pliers

Backlight installation, work with Chinese LED garland

The next task is to make the lighting at the tips of the branches as bright as possible. To do this, it is necessary, starting from the end of the garland, to collect several LEDs in a bundle, fastening everything with tape. After that, the finished bundle of LEDs, using the same adhesive tape, must be fixed at the top of the "trunk". Next, the garland should be distributed along the "trunk" to the next branch, at the end of which you need to collect a bunch again, and so on.

When pulling the garland along the trunk, it is better to fix it with tape near single LEDs. After all the bundles are in place, the trunk and branches need to be wrapped with a paper (cellulose rope is twisted from it) or a fabric strip.

All the bundles of LEDs are in place, it remains to prepare the tape and wrap the branch

As a result, you should get a full-fledged branch, which only requires giving it the desired color. It should be noted that, when wrapping the barrel, it is necessary to bypass the single LEDs. With a fairly bright glow of the beams, single elements will slightly highlight the trunk of the branch, which will add additional beauty to the product.

Branch trunk with LEDs waiting to be painted

Branch painting and what materials to use for this

To paint the surface of the branch, use acrylic compounds. They dry very quickly, do not emit chemicals, and have no smell. It is better to use matte acrylic varnish first, it should cover paper or fabric. After the first layer has dried, you need to apply the base (in our case, bronze paint) with a semi-dry brush. And the last layer of the base will be varnish, only now glossy. Although, in the absence of paints, it is quite possible to leave the branch in its original form.

Bronze paint will reflect light from the light bulbs slightly

With the same paint, you need to lightly cover the villi of half of the prepared plastic feathers. When applying, use the semi-dry brush method so that there is no obstacle to the light flux from the garland.

Half of the plastic feathers are also tinted with golden acrylic

Assembling lampshades for each LED bundle

For convenience, parts of the lampshades can be prepared on the table. To do this, using hot glue, you need to connect 2-3 feathers at the base so that it looks like a cup. Golden and unpainted feathers should be alternated one at a time. At this stage, you can calculate how many elements are required for each lampshade.

Be careful when working with a thermal gun. Its tip gets hot enough to get burned.

The feathers should be combined in 2-3 pieces. with a heat gun

Further, parts of the lampshades must be glued to the branches using the same thermo-gun so that the "bud" completely hides the associated beams of LEDs. This work requires the utmost care and attention. After all, the main task in such work is to make a beautiful lamp that will not only delight the owner, but also surprise the friends who come to visit.

If some of the petals of the resulting bud did not lay down as planned, then it is better to re-glue them. Hot melt glue cools down rather quickly, and this may well happen.

The finished bud really looks like an exotic tree flower

What should be the lamp from plastic bottles and garlands

A ready-made branch with glowing flowers can decorate any interior, even if the garland is not plugged into the outlet. This light can be placed on a shelf, dresser, coffee table or even mounted on a wall. The main thing is to ensure that it can be turned on - the socket must be nearby. After all, our task was to create not so much a decorative element as an LED lamp.

Before placing the branch in the desired place, you can change its shape. Acrylic paints are flexible and will not crack when the aluminum "barrel" is bent.

Even when not plugged in, the lamp looks amazing.

Checking the performance of a luminaire made of plastic bottles

Well, now that all the work is over, you can check how a working lamp looks like in the dark. And if you don't have the patience to wait for the night, you can try it in any dark room, for example, in the bathroom.

We are sure that such a luminous branch will definitely appeal to everyone. These impressions cannot even be described in words, and therefore we propose to first see how the lamp looks like. on a photo example, and then independently make a similar one at home in order to see this beauty.

Such a wonderful branch can grow and bloom in any apartment or private house.

Summing up the work done

Everyone wants to have designer things in the house. But they are not cheap and not everyone can afford it. So why not use the long weekend that suddenly appeared to create such an exclusive lamp with your own hands. Indeed, in everyday life, there is never enough time for such activities. Moreover, special materials are not required here, everything you need can be found in almost any apartment. And such work will not take much time. You can no longer talk about the result, everyone who read the article saw everything for himself. Well, getting rid of boredom or depression is a bonus.

We really hope that the step-by-step instructions for making an amazing lamp from plastic bottles presented by us today will be adopted by our dear readers. Any questions on the topic, if any, you can ask in the comments below. HouseChief editors will definitely answer them. There you can share your opinion about what you have read and comment on whether it is worth doing such work or whether it is better to use self-isolation for sleeping and watching TV.

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