Cypress Knee Floor Lamp

I love this lamp! I had this idea for a cypress knee lamp for a few years, and  ya know how it goes some ideas just never get created. I'm glad this one did! My friend commissioned me for a birthday present for her father, and after a few drinks I told her about this idea... so I got started creating. Its a Bald Cypress knee as the base with a copper stem as the body, pretty simple construction. I am really happy with the final product, and hope you enjoy the pictures. 

BTW! I just added a follow button and would love to see those numbers grow, so if your stopping by and checking things out show the love by following!

And as always never stop creating!

Rustic Lamp

Hey guys, so this past semester I attended a three dimensional design class, and the finial project was to take a item or items that have one purpose and turn them into some thing useful... so I made a lamp out of copper tubing and fittings.

I am still trying to be mindful that I have a blog, and I have a few projects I have done recently that I didn't take any pictures of, sorry!

The body of the lamp is copper tubing and fittings, and the base is a piece of fire wood I had in my wood stack. I cut the log in to a block on a band saw then used a chisel to distress the block to look cracked and aged. For a stain I used brown and black shoe polish in random spots, then blended the two with Danish oil, the color turned out nice.  

As for the cord, I wanted a vintage looking cord. I know you can buy vintage lamp cords online but I just took two pieces of wire and twisted the using my cordless drill. Using a drill to twist wire or rope is a fast and easy way to get a consistent wrap throughout the length of  wire/rope.

Finally, with keeping the rustic/vintage look I picked up a Edison bulb from Lowes. This project was Fairly easy, I soldered all the fittings in place and if you have never done this before its not as hard as you might think. All you need is a plumbers torch, solder, and some flux. Copper heats really fast so each fitting only takes about 30 seconds to do. Another thing to remember when soldering something like this, is this lamp is not going to hold water nor are most of us professional plumbers, these joints don't have to be perfect. If you get solder everywhere it's nothing a file and wire brush cant fix. 

If anyone wants to make something similar to this, let me know and I'll try to make up another one for a tutorial. Or if you might have a question about soldering fittings or wiring up a lamp leave me a comment and I'll promptly return a comment.

Remember if you do attempt any kind of soldering, plumbing or electrical you are dealing with extreme heat sources, so be mindful of your surroundings and your extremities!!! Burns happen often.

As always thanks for checking the blog out and keep coming back!

Quick & Easy Way to Make Mosaic Pins

What are Mosaic pins? All a mosaic pin is, is different sizes of brass, copper, aluminum, and steel tubing or wire inside one another, then filled with an epoxy, they primarily have a decorative purpose. (disclaimer) I am by no means an expert on this subject, but I have dabbled a little... and all that makes a person an expert in a craft is practice, so lets practice.... The tubing can be anything from round, square, or you can use wire as a filler. Here is a picture I pulled off Google, to give you an idea of different patterns.

 
This is a list of the supplies I used.

• Easy Cast. This can be found at Michael's or most craft stores.
• Tubing. I don't remember the sizes, you really have to play with this part of the project and just see what fits.
• Latex gloves.
• A drill
• Wax paper
• Hot glue gun
• Acrylic paint. color is your choice
• Hacksaw. or something to cut metal with. A dremel with a metal cutting wheel works perfect.
• and a metal file and fine grit sandpaper (250 to 500 grit)

• Once you have all the supplies, you can start assembling the pins. I found that working in 6" sections was ideal. It made lining up the top and bottom inside tubes easier.

• First drill the holes in a scrap piece of wood, don't drill all the way through, that way if there is a leak it doesn't drain the epoxy from your pin. ( I made that mistake)

• Use the wax paper as a kind of plug, also it keeps the pin from being epoxied to the board. Once you have the pin in place, cut off the excess paper and hot glue the pin in place. This just keeps it from moving around. 

• The next step is to mix the epoxy. It's really simple, equal parts from both containers. Now that you have them mixed in one container, you can add some color. There is probably 100 different ways you could do this with dyes and pigments, but I have a lot of acrylic paint on hand. The amount of paint you use varies, If you want a dark color mix more, for lighter mix less. But it really doesn't take a whole lot.

• There are 2 ways you can fill the pins. This is where your going to want to wear your gloves.

1. poor the epoxy directly into the main cavity, then insert the inside tubes or wire.
2. insert the tubes or wire, then drizzle the epoxy over the top of the project. 

either way will work, but I think the second way makes more internal air pockets. Also this is going to be messy, but any epoxy on the outside of the pin can be sanded off easily once it dries.

• Once the epoxy has set (give it 24hrs) then peel off the hot glue and wax paper. There is your Mosaic pin. The only thing left to do is insert them in to something. They look great in knife handles or in the place of a dowel rod pin (where it will be visible)  

• To insert a mosaic pin in a piece of wood, just drill a hole the size of the outside diameter tube, cut the piece to size, then add some epoxy to the hole, and insert the pin. Once the epoxy has dried, file and sand flush. 

That's it!

This is one I put in a brewing mash paddle. It was a last minute addition, after I had already stained it so I couldn't file it down as much as I would have liked. That's why you can see some rough edges. This is why its important to plan the project out from start to finish.

I hope this was helpful, Have fun creating!  Thanks.