Transformation Tuesday: Lamp Makeover

Remember the What Would You Do Wednesday question a while back about the hanging lamp? I finally got around to doing something with it.

My friend wanted help giving it a makeover, but the stipulation was that it had to stay a lamp. There were very good reasons for why she wanted to honor her mother-in-law for thinking of her in picking it up at a yard sale for her, but she also wanted to make it into something she liked. My job was to come up with something that would make her fall in love with it.

I tried stripping the paint to see what was under it, but it did nothing but create some rust. Maybe the solution was too old, as it was in my basement for years. Either way, I washed it off and decided to paint it in a oil rubbed bronze (ORB) finish. I had some ORB spray paint, but not enough, so I coated it in Rustoleum black. Then I gave it a spritz of copper paint all over, and finally a thin coat of the ORB. This stretched my on-hand materials farther. 

I stuffed some paper in the light sockets to keep paint out of them. Then, I poked some office supply fastener clips into a cardboard box and painted them with the spray pain too. 

Now, for what I planned to do with these supplies.I printed some 4x6 photos onto laser transparency film. It's just from the office supply store. I have a color laser printer, and knowing that the laser film can withstand the head of laser printing, I thought it would be perfect. I trimmed the photos down to 3x6 because this would fit over each opening in the lamp. The lamp has holes in the metal on surrounding the opening, so I got the idea to punch holes in the printed pictures and then fasten them to the lamp with the office fasteners (you know, the kind with the little metal wings you bend outward on the back). 

 I hung up the lamp and turned it on for a while to test it and see that the projector film doesn't get too hot. No problem. All of the heat of the lamp goes out the top. 

 Here is a back side view of the fastener clips.

 Here is a close-up of how the fastener clips look on the outside. 

 It kind of has a neat effect of projecting the pictures onto the wall. 

 I chose pictures I knew would be special to my friend. Her soldier son, her first grandchild, the other children, her husband, and both of their mothers. 

Thing is, the lamp still isn't outstanding. There's only so much one can do. But my friend choked up when she saw it, and said she loves it. I think it's because it has all of the people she loves on it. The best part is that the photos can be changed out easily down the road. Or removed completely.