Patriotic Lamp

Remember the class project that was making me a little nuts? Well, it's finally finished.  To give you some background information, each class had to make a lamp.  A lamp is a very challenging project to have it look unique and not become some sort of fire hazard.  I found this lamp as inspiration.

 

Not only did the project need to be a lamp, but it also had to follow a "patriotic theme".  Phew, this was going to be more difficult than I anticipated. Here is what I came up with for the lamp.

So, in place of sand dollars I had each child paint their own star red or blue.  The stars are made out of Sculpey.  I used a star cookie cutter and punched a hole in the middle as well before I put them in the oven to harden. Once that was done the kids could paint them.  Then I added a few finishing touches and sealed them with epoxy to give it that shiny glass look. Next, I needed to thread the stars on the base, but I didn't want them to stack right on top of each other so I used PVC pipe sections as spacers.  All it took was a couple coats of silver spray paint to make it blend in with the base of the lamp. Once the stars were stacked I finished the lampshade off with a blue grosgrain ribbon.