The Bare Light Bulb

As a renter, I always seem to encounter this, it's just my luck. The Bare Light Bulb. Not sure which is worse; The Bare Lightbulb or The God-Awful Ugly Light Fixture (aka the fixture in the kitchen):

I know, the horror. Let us try to move on.

Anyways, when in need of a solution I turn to Pinterest. There were lots of neat, diy ideas easily adaptable to a light bulb in need. The best ideas for me are the ones that include mostly things I already have, or things I can purchase at the dollar store or at a thrift store.

This one caught my eye:

http://www.lisaroy.ca/2012/03/my-diy-capiz-chandelier.html

 

 

The capiz shells were imitable by cutting out circles of wax paper. However her chandelier involved an 'ornament hanger' and a sewing machine, neither of which I had on hand. Then I came across this:

http://www.designsponge.com/2010/08/diy-project-brennas-paper-capiz-shell-chandelier.html

She used a planter (much more accessible in June than an ornament hanger), and glued her wax paper circles to ribbon, rather than sewing them all together with a machine. I was excited to find a planter at the dollar store for... one dollar. I also picked up some wax paper, craft glue and ribbon there as well. However I would recommend Wal-Mart for the ribbon and craft glue. I quickly went through my dollar store supply and found it to be a much better buy at Wal-Mart... 10 yards of thin white ribbon for $.47 as opposed to 3 yards of white ribbon at the dollar store. I ended up using four rolls of the ribbon, so pick up several if you're going to give this a shot. I also bought a can of white spray paint to spray the black planter white and ceiling hooks to hang the planter from.

I cut lengths of wax paper and folded them into half, and half again and halves again... To minimize the amount of times I had to cut a circle. All of this would be made simpler and your circles more uniform if you had a circle cutter. However I did not, so hand cut circles it was.

For the record, you will cut one ga-zillion circles.

I figured out how long I wanted my circles to hang, then doubled that measurement and cut ribbon to size. I doubled the measurement because I draped my ribbon over the planter form and got twice the density for my trouble!

I draped my circles-glued-to-ribbons over the top part of the planter and also through the smaller, lower ring. I hot glued them to keep em in line, and then screwed the ceiling hooks in. I didn't want any of this to be a potential fire hazard so I tied some ribbon to the small eyes at the top of the planter and then tied the other ends of the ribbon to the ceiling hooks so that the planter was hanging a few inches underneath the lightbulb.

Finished product:

I did end up trimming it when I got a little further into the whole closet project. I took off the two bottom circles on each of the lower strands, and it definitely made the whole thing look a little sharper.