Remember awhile back when we talked about making your own pendant lighting from string and fabric stiffner? A little further down the road we came across a few more ideas to improve the project by using hemp and a playground ball, but we've recently come across one that used something better — an exercise ball and a shower curtain rod!
We've been following along in the diy pendant making process over at Made By Girl where Jen has been trying her hand at creating her own fixture. She's brought to our attention several extra steps taken that really made her final result more aesthetically pleasing than other diy versions we've seen in the past (including the few we've made on our own as well!).
For starters, an extra hole was added to allow for the changing of the light bulb without the removal of the shade from the pendant. She also used a large exercise ball as the base, which would have given the project more shape and presence when all was said and done.
The entire lot of string was soaked in wallpaper paste instead of the oh so tedious method of painting on fabric stiffner (which seals almost every open space between threads when everything is dry, not cool). The final result was topped off by using a shower curtain rod to hold the cord straight inside and it gives the overall project that extra sleek feel.
• Check out the full project over at Made By Girl.
Thanks Jen!
Image: Made By Girl
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That looks great! I think more pictures at each stage of the process would be helpful. A video would be awesome.
souk1501 - There's several pictures provided in the links above, but it gets tricky. The making of the lamp is a messy one and touching a camera with hands covered in fabric stiffner or wallpaper paste isn't high on many people's lists!
When I was small, I made string balloons using plaster of Paris, squeezing off the excess before wrapping the string onto the balloon. I don't see why the fabric stiffener sold in craft stores couldn't be used the same say -- just soak a few yards, apply it, add more to soak, apply that, etc.
Fabric stiffener does work well for this project, but soaking the string first is a must. It gets tricky when needing to soak the amount of string needed to complete the pendant without things tangling!
I used an exercise ball and fabric stiffner/glue for my string pendant for my current apartment. I have 12 foot ceilings, so the size of a big ball is appropriate. Everyone loves my lgiht pendant, and they can't believe I made it. My only word of advice is don't cheat! Upgrading to a bigger size means more time. After and hour of running string through my gluey hands, I thought I had a brilliant idea. I poured all of the glue into a tupperware bowl, and added some water just to make the consistency easier to work with. I twirled the rest of the string around the ball, grabbed a sponge, and started slathering onto the stringy ball. Result: it created a thin film between the strings and made almost a lamp shade effect. It would have turned out cool if the shade effect was all over the ball. It ended up looking like a decade's worth of collected dust. Oh, and because I cheated, the ball wasn't saturated enough, and now has a dent where I obviously did not sponge enough paste.
Nevertheless a great idea, and I plan on using it in my next new apartment is a couple of weeks! :)
I used a 24 inch beach ball and 1 skein of white mercerized cotton and 2-4 oz of regular all purpose school dry clear glue, I lowered the shower curtain rod to a comfortable level to stand and work and tied a piece of sting around the beach ball air nozzle to hold the ball in place. I put a skein of mercerized cotton yarn with the end of the yarn tied on a colored paper clip (so you can find it) in a resealable plastic gallon storage bag, stuffed that bag inside of another bag, poured two bottles of craft glue ($.99 cents each) into the bag on top of the yarn, added 1/2 bottle of water to each bottle, shook it up and poured it in, closed the bag and squeezed and kneaded the diluted glue through the yarn, no mess at all . I opened the bag and easily found the end (it was tied on a red paper clip), cut away the clip with scissors and I just wound the yarn around the ball. By it hanging it was so easy, I finished wrapping the entire skein in about 15-20 minutes and the glue dripped back into the bag which I let lay on the bathtub floor. I pulled out what I needed to work with at the time and it unwound in the plastic bag. When I finished I pushed the top of the yarn away from the air nozzle into a circle at the top to leave room for the swag light fixture to fit in. After it dries, I will let the air out of the ball, and remove it through the hole I created. It was so easy and fun, and I am going to reuse the beach ball for the next one, I am thinking a hot pink mercerized cotton yarn for the next one (my granddaughter wants one for her room. So instead of paying $90 or up to $1500 I can make my own for under $25.00. And this way leaves no thin film between the strings!!!
Oh my god, I used too much water, but I unwound the yarn and I did it again with 1/8 bottle of water only and it worked wonderfully!!, I love it, but I hated the beach ball so I used a punch ball balloon and it was fantastic!! It is so cute!
I am so excited to make one of these. I kept trying to figure out how she used a shower curtain rod on this project. Now I think I figured out that she used a shower curtain rod cap to put on the top of the pendant. I could be wrong.