Slide Lamp

So, this isn't really cheating, but maybe it is a little bit...

I made this slide lamp earlier this year. I've been busy lately with school work and wedding planning, and making this pillow (I need to take pictures and post them; it's coming along!!), so it's been hard to concentrate on new, specific crafts.

Making this slide lamp was a ton of fun. My high school media and history teacher, Barry O'Keeffe, had a library card catalog of old slides from his media classes in the '70s. When we graduated, he told our media class that we could take as many of the old slides as we wanted, if we needed them for anything. Most of the girls thought they were stupid, but a couple of us spent HOURS holding the little teeny slides up to the fluorescent lights, picking out ones we liked.

It was three years before I did anything with them, but when I DID - the results were pretty cool. I mean, I think the results are cool. Check it out!









I started by getting a crappy, kind of ugly lamp from Target that was way-on-sale. It was one of those lamps is rectangular shaped (as you can see in the picture above), covered/wrapped in linen. I plugged it in once, as-is, before I dismantled it. It was pretty, but I had bigger plans for it.

After ripping the fabric off of it and using Goo-Gone (oh my gosh, one of the BEST products ever, seriously) to scrape the remnants of glue off of the frame, I got to work. I measured the slides and then the length/width of the lamp and figured out that I could fit three slides across and five slides down, on each side. This meant that, with four sides, I would need 60 slides.

The main idea for the slide lamp came from ReadyMade Magazine (one of the best magazines ever). They suggested using brackets and jewelery rings to connect the slides to each other, but I tried doing that and it was too hard. I needed pliers to pull the rings apart and I got too impatient with that, SO I decided to sew the slides together.

I bought some white embroidery thread and used a thumbtack to poke holes into the cardboard part of the slides. Then I laid them side by side and sewed three slides together at a time, and then sewed the three sides onto another set of three slides, and so on and so forth. Then, I poked holes all along the top row and sides of the slides where they were congruent to frame, and I sewed those together as well.

Voila! I screwed in a lightbulb and bam! A slide lamp!

What do you think?

Mod Podge Tutorial

Okay, okay. So here is the promised tutorial.

To begin - where does one buy Mod Podge? Well, it's everywhere. Closer to the city of St. Louis, Bradburn's (a teacher's supply store) has it. However, it can also be found at any Michael's or Hobby Lobby in the area. I suspect it can be found in other places, but I have yet to see it at Target. Maybe Wal-Mart? I suspect that almost any arts & crafts store will have it. Regardless, get yourself over to Michael's or Hobby Lobby and get you some.

So, Mod Podge is very easy to work with. It works like a watered-down glue. Does anyone remember making papier-mache sculptures? And you would soak the newsaper strips in a water and glue mix? That's about the consistency of Mod Podge.

You can get Mod Podge in to finishes - glossy or matte. I always go for glossy, although I've realized over the years that some projects would definitely have worked better with matte. The glossy is very high-shine. If you don't want light reflecting off of it, you may want to go with the matte.

As I said before, it's easy to work with. I used a paintbrush to apply it to whatever I'm working with, but sponge-brushes work great, too - they give it an even finish.

Here is my glue drawer, in my trusty card-catalog.



That's right, I have three bottles of the grand stuff.



So, you begin by dipping your paintbrush in the Mod Podge. I usually just keep it in the plastic container, but it would be nice to have a bigger-lipped container to dip your brush in. Then, you apply it - just like you would paint!


It goes on pretty thick and white-ish. I would put the paintbrush on it over and over again to smooth it out, but there will be some white left over - and that's okay. It will dry clear.

Hope you enjoyed the tutorial! Right now I just have these pictures of me Mod Podging it up - with a bulletin board border. But soon enough I will take plenty of pictures of me with Mod Podge and paper and other materials.

I'm almost finished with the bulletin board - I'll post the finished project after I get the last thing I need!

For more information, check out this tutorial at An Altered Obsession. Also, there's a whole blog devoted to projects made with Mod Podge. Like shoes. Hmmm...yeah, you should probably check that out.