A week of mini DIY: Part 2

I've been looking for a statement light fitting for the lounge of the Malibu Beach House for years - it's a double height room in places and it needs something dramatic. While I've gone with modern furniture for the majority of the house, I want the lounge to lean into the art deco style.

I'd found a lovely chandelier on Etsy but the seller is based in The Netherlands, making the postage pretty expensive. So despite my lack of skill, knowledge and experience, I decided to have a go myself.

My first stop was Hobbycraft, where I discovered a sort of 'pick and mix' scenario in the bead section. You could fill a small tub for £5 and I was surprised just how much I could fit in. 

I already had a battery and bulb fitting from Minimum World and although I would prefer it to be a warm white, it's the closest thing I've been able to find to create my own lampshade. 

I also had some gold paint leftover from a work project so thought I could put that to good use. I needed a circle for the base and after investigating the price of large hole punches, I realised it would be much cheaper to buy a small pack of pre-cut cardboard circles. I'd looked at the sizes of other 1:12 light fittings online so had a rough idea of what I was aiming for.

After laying out the outer layer of beads, I worked out what I had left (which was far more than I could use - that pot was a bargain!) and came up with a rough design. I spent far too long tying knots in cotton before realising they were never going to hold the beads in place, so I opted for a little blob of glue instead. I'd wanted to use superglue but got in a bit of a mess - it turns out it really is quite strong - so reverted to wood glue which worked surprisingly well. 

I also threaded six of the cardboard circles onto the bulb - the idea being that I would pull through the cotton of the first circle, then stick them all together to form a firm base.

Originally I'd planned to thread all the beads and then pull them through the cardboard so they were all at the correct length. This idea went out the window pretty early on as it was too fiddly to keep the strings in place while threading more. I ended up having to tape them in place so the middle layer was a little thicker than I'd like. 

I was worried about the weight of the beads and the gaps at the top you can see below, but then I realised the gaps wouldn't be visible once the final layer of beads were glued into place. It was a delicate job but very satisfying to see it taking shape. 
 

It definitely got more complicated as I reached the end and had to cram the final layer on and I think this might be where I went slightly wrong and it became unbalanced.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out considering I was making it up as I went along. I just need to figure out how to balance it properly so it hangs nicely when in situ. It probably didn't help that I was just holding it in place for the photo and won't be installing it properly until the flooring is in. But that's another story...