DIY capiz chandelier

I originally blogged about this DIY project on my old blog, DTTD imagine.design.create

Have you seen the awesome DIY capiz chandeliers out there in the blogosphere? Here are just a few that inspired me to make my own – and yes, believe it or not, they’re all FAUX capiz. {Click the images to read about how each one was made.}

Lisa Roy Muskoka |A Happy Place Called Home |SZInteriors

I’ve already hung chandeliers just about everywhere in the house that a chandelier can go. Ahhhh, but wait! What about this spot in the hallway outside the bedrooms…

I had a couple of old brass chandeliers that I tried to give to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore, but they didn’t want them. Can you believe it?! Who wouldn’t be all over this brass & plastic beauty ;-)

I can’t find a before picture of the chandelier I used when it was hanging in the dining room, but it’s the same as the one above that used to hang in our entry, except it’s tiered as opposed to spiraled. But the tiers were opposite from the direction I needed them to go, plus it was too big. So hubby worked a little magic on it and changed it from too big and upside down to just right.

Now the fun part – making the faux capiz shells. The first step is to iron three sheets of wax paper together. Over and over and over. It takes a LOT of wax paper! Put parchment paper on top of the wax paper before you iron to prevent the wax paper from sticking to the iron.

I crumpled and then flattened out some sheets of wax paper to add texture to my “shells”. I randomly combined crumpled and uncrumpled sheets in each set of three.

Texture!

Use a circle cutter to cut out the circles. I bought a 1-1/2” Fiskars punch at Michaels. Fold the wax paper like an accordion and punch out the circles in double-thicknesses. This will make things twice as fast, plus the cutter doesn’t cut very well through just one layer. I recommend doing this step in front of the TV while watching NCAA basketball :-)

You need a LOT of wax circles…

Once the circles are cut, it’s time to attach them together. My original plan was to use jumper rings, but after linking one batch with rings, I realized this method would take me about seven years. Plus my thumb & finger were really not happy with me opening and closing all those rings. {Check out A Happy Place Called Home to see the jumper ring method done right.}

So I switched over to the sewing method – WAAAAYYY faster and easier. {Check out Lisa Roy Muskoka for an easy-to-follow tutorial with lots of pics.} Sew long chains of circles together, and then cut them to the lengths that you want.

Image via Lisa Roy Muskoka

Mine ranged from 7 circles per chain for the outer top tier, to 10 circles per chain for the lowest tier, to 20-22 circles per chain everywhere else. In the end, the circles on the lowest tier don’t actually show, but they help give the chandelier a fuller look.

Hubby installed the chandelier – remember to put in the bulbs before you put on the chains!

And then I hung the chains on it. I don’t have pictures of this part, because, well, I forgot to take pictures. Plus I didn’t hang them in the most logical order, so you don’t want to hang yours the way I hung mine. You want to start with the lowest tier and then move up. Also, after I hung all the chains, I took them all down when I realized that it would be better to wrap wire around each tier and hang the chains over the wire instead of over the brass arms. This way, the flat side would be pointing out instead of sideways.

And this is how it turned out…

My top outer tier is all the same length, and the rest of the chains are hung at slightly different lengths because I didn’t want the bottom to be perfectly straight.

Even close up, the wax paper really does look like capiz shells.

I still may do a little bit of tweaking to the top tier to make it fuller around the top. Just have to figure out how…

Here’s a breakdown of the supplies and costs:

• Chandelier base – already had it, $0.00
• Wax paper – already had a mega roll, bought one roll at the Dollar Store, $1.00
• Jumper rings – 1 pack at Michaels, ~$3.00 with coupon {it’s better to sew circles together}
• 1-1/2” circle cutter – $21.99 + 40% off coupon at Michaels, ~$14.00
• Roll of wire – $2.00
• Thread & sewing machine

TOTAL COST: $20.00

Yep, that’s right – just 20 smackers for what’s essentially a brand new chandelier. Not too shabby, eh? :-) So what do you think – will you be making your own capiz chandelier?

Linking up to…

These are a few of my favourite things

Here’s another instalment of my favourite things…

Natural Formation

The latest addition to my art collection – Natural Formation by Sharon Bratcher Cummings. Sharon is an amazing artist, and she has a really diverse collection of work. You can find her on Facebook, Etsy, Yessy, and Fine Art America. Thank you Sharon for all of your beautiful art!

Velvet Feathers

I’m madly in love with this fabric, Velvet Feathers. The design is a collaboration between Jim Thompson Fabric and David Rockwell. I bet it costs a whack of money, but I need this fabric somewhere in my house!

The Bright Box

My blog friend Carol from The Design Pages has started a new business selling Bright Box products. She’s been having giveaways on her Bright Box Facebook page, and I won this great collection. It’s taking all of my willpower to not eat the cupcake, which is actually a bath bomb! ;-) Thank you Carol!

Blackberry fruit-pigment mascara

And while we’re on the topic of makeup, I love this amazing mascara that I found at terra20. It’s from 100% Pure and is made from berry juices. Not only is Blackberry purple, it smells amazing! I always take a sniff of the wand as it goes past my nose to my eye :-) The mascara also comes in Black Tea, Blueberry, and Dark Chocolate.

Anthony

Late last night, I picked up our new foster dog, Anthony :-) Although I’m thinking we may call him Hooch. He’s very quiet and pretty shy, but he seems to be warming up to us. Not sure if the worried look on his face is because he’s actually worried or because that’s just how he looks :-)

Hope you’re having a great weekend! Mine’s been pretty awesome so far :-)

A strange thing happened in bed last night

And no, it had nothing to do with 50 Shades of Gray ;-) I was reading the November 2012 issue of House Beautiful {if you think that’s bad, I still have unread magazines from 2011 on my iPad!}, and on page 107, a strong dislike for the room I was looking at just hit me out of the blue.

WHOA! Serious pattern overload! It made me shudder. And then I saw this bar:

And this bedroom:

And this office:

And this kitchen:

And I just didn’t get the appeal. For comparison sake, these are the bedrooms in my house:

And my office:

And my kitchen:

As you can see, my rooms are a lot different than the rooms in House Beautiful. And that’s cool – even though I have my own style and design preferences, I enjoy and appreciate all different kinds of designs. But now I’m wondering – am I just weird for not liking the rooms in House Beautiful? If that’s the case {which is quite likely} and you like the HB rooms, I’d love to know what is is about them that appeals to you. And if you like my rooms, I’ve love to know that too!

Getting all artsy-fartsy

Last January, one of my goals for the year was to create a painting, any kind of painting. And I did it – WOOT! Do you remember the OMFG Painting? In spite of the exploding paint disaster, I finished the painting and had so much fun doing it, I painted a bunch more.

Those abstract paintings were fun to do. But even more fun is creating foil paintings. After taking a workshop taught by Susan Bailie of Art Walls last November, I’ve literally become a painting fiend! Since the Christmas holidays, I’ve created over 20 foil paintings. I’ve been having a blast trying out different colour combinations and styles and techniques.

Bodacious Bubbles

 

Mineral Deposit

 

Oil Slick

 

Ring of Fire

I thin my favourite paintings do create are the butterflies…

Flowers and a Butterfly

 

 
Flight of Fancy

These next ones are little 4” x 4” paintings.

Perfectly Purple

 

Green Bean

 

Pretty in Purple

 

Pretty in Pink

 

Ocean Love

 

Purple Emblem

Right now, all the foil paintings are sitting on the mantel in the family room. Not sure what’s going to happen with them, but right now I’m enjoying all the colour and sparkle :-)

And on a totally different note, our third foster puppy Myles has found his new forever home :-) He was adopted by a family an hour outside of Ottawa. I’m sure the little guy is going to be very spoiled and loved :-) Have fun Myles! ♥