IKYA KESIRAJU: DIY Lamp

For a little over a month or so, On our whatsapp group chat, we've been getting these "Ooh I made a new lamp" updates with pictures from Mansi. This is her Lamp phase. We've seen (been through, with her) her randomly colouring walls with crayons phase (If you saw it, you would actually encourage your kid to doodle on walls with crayons), her ink sketching phase, her cooking phase, her watercolours (that are so good, they must be made illegal) phase, and her photography phase, to name a few.
I thought why not exploit her talent to satiate all you creative souls! Here's how she explains the 'Do It Yourself Lamp'. Diwali is around the corner and this would make amazing handmade Diwali presents! I've already started on one!! Eek!

Guest Post by Mansi Saxena.
Mansi is a classmate from school, a fellow Army brat, a classmate at college turned best friend for life. Ecentric, Artistic, Obsessively Creative, Outrageously Funny. Makes really good chole bhature and paints just about anything. Paints on anything. Forgetful, Tiny, Adorable. A box of crayons can trigger her madness. Stays up doing water colours. Beautiful sketches and now obsessively into making lamps. Turns scrap to treasure and is the strangest, lovable person I know.

I had this box of surf excel lying at home for a very long time since I had started to make lamps, (of course this is not my first .It’s the only one for which I was conscious enough to take pictures while I made it, thanks to Ikya of course who had asked me to).

So how to make this lamp?

You would need-

Surfexcel cardboard box (any alternative will do)

Bulb (I used a normal 25w bulb,its not a cfl, but I'd rather use a yellow cfl)

Pink faul (the long piece of cloth that our mothers stitch at the bottom of their saris) and also any color would do. The main reason why I chose this to cover my lamp was because of its translucency and also because its cheap.

Wiring (that included a bulb holder, wire and 2 pin plug)

Additional material: glue, nestle curd cup, scissors, cutter, acrylic paint of your choice (I chose red).

Let's get started!

So first thing I did was make as many holes that could in the box.

The technique is to use a pair of tiny scissors, and poke the box then go around twisting the scissors to widen the hole. This is probably the only annoyingly painful job here. It took me three days to complete digging holes on all four sides.

Now is the time to splash some color, I chose red, as I wanted a decent background for my pink faul and have the Surf excel design all covered.

It will require at least 24 hrs for the acrylic paint to dry. Meanwhile you can do the wiring and bulb fixing.
Use a Nestle curd cup or any plastic cup to fix the bulb and get it to stand in the box.

You‘ll need to cut the cup in half, and using the bulb holder as your reference for the size of the hole. Use a cutter or whatever you find comfortable to use to cut it.

Fix your bulb in the cut out.

Place the bulb in the box and tape it to keep it in place. Pull the wire out through any hole and attach the 2 pin plug to the end. Make sure you have a screw driver for this. Also at this point I’ll suggest that you check whether the bulb is working or not.

Now its time to start Decorating the lamp. Like I used a simple faul to cover the box with, you can also use some lace or any other translucent cloth. You can also use paper and paint over it. Look around and see what you can use, you'll be surprised with your own creativity.

Here, I started with covering the opening with 2 layers of faul, then wrapping the faul all around the box.

So now more or less the lamp is ready. There is lot more that can be done, but I kept it quite minimal, though I wish I had some lace to add to this.

Now, switch it on to see the effect of your lamp. [Editor's note: Tadaa!]

Editor: I think, this has come in time for all of us to make these for Diwali! Also I'm really reallllyyy sorry for not posting this yesterday. The pictures I had weren't getting loaded and I only got these past midnight.