Bubblelicious fireplace mantel

I just discovered that The Lettered Cottage is having a summer mantel link party. I’m at the cottage and only have one camera and memory card with me, and not all my mantel pictures are on my laptop. But I don’t want to miss out on the fun, so I’ve put together some pictures that I have on hand.

After we finished making over our fireplace this past winter, I couldn’t figure out what to hang above the mantel. I wanted it to be something different and unexpected. And then I came across an awesome bubble “light fixture” project by Jenna at Homeslice, and it was a total AH-HA! moment :-)

This is how my bubble project turned out. If you’d like to read about how hubby and I put it all together, click here.

Someone suggested hanging a mirror on the wall to reflect the bubbles. Great idea! I found one on Kijiji that was the perfect size – sold for $35!

Oh yeah, double the bubbleliciousness! But figuring out how to style the mantel was a big pain – it was too plain with nothing, but I didn’t want it cluttered and overshadowing the bubbles. I decided to keep with the bubbly theme and display my glass floats.

This is the best picture that I have on hand of the whole mantel. I took it a few weeks ago when I had an art party at my house – hence all the art!

And that’s my summer mantel. Head on over to The Lettered Cottage to get lots of great summer mantel inspiration :-)

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A bubblelicious DIY project

I love, love, love Bocci light fixtures:

So cool, but so expensive and so not happening in my house. Till I found this awesome bubble “light fixture” project by Jenna at Homeslice:

How awesome is that?! Jenna and her husband created their own version of a bubble light fixture (minus the light) using glass bubble balls from CB2, ornament caps from D. Blumchen & Company, and some ingenuity.

     

There was no question that I was going to make one of these babies, I just didn’t know where I would put it. And then I had an ah-ha moment – it would be the perfect piece to hang above the fireplace in the family room. So I bought the supplies and hubby and I used the tutorial by Jenna as a guide for putting it all together. We made some modifications based on the number of glass balls we used (Jenna used 15, we used 25). Here’s a quick rundown of what we did.

How we did it

Hubby built the board that the bubbles hang from and I painted it the same colour as the fireplace mantel, Benjamin Moore Cloud White. It’s the same length and width as the mantel – about 66” x 17”

This is where hubby turned it into a total mathie project. There are two sizes of balls, 4” and 6”. The size of the space above the fireplace where the glass balls hang is 45L” x 30H” x 13D”. Hubby generated a list of random numbers from a website like this one, and used the numbers to position each ball within the space. If a number caused an interference with an already set glass ball, he moved to the next number. Sorry if that makes no sense to you – it doesn’t make sense to me either! At any rate, here’s the AutoCAD version of the final glass ball layout:

Now on to the actual construction. Hubby drilled small holes in all the appropriate places on the board. Then we cut pieces of invisible thread to the required lengths and attached one end of each piece of thread to a metal ornament cap and tied a loop in the other end. The looped end went through the hole in the board (from painted side to unpainted side) and around a toothpick – very high-tech! The toothpicks hold each thread in place when the thread is taut, but I added a piece of tape to each toothpick to be extra-sure the threads stay in place. To prevent the threads from getting tangled (been there, done that, not fun!), I taped each thread to the front of the board until the board was installed.

Then it was time to attach the board to the ceiling above the fireplace. Hubby screwed three pieces of wood to the ceiling, and then screwed the board to the pieces of wood.

As you can see, there are two pot lights right in front of the board. So even though this isn’t going to be an actual functioning bubble light fixture, it sort of acts like one with the pot lights right there.

Then it was finally time for the fun part! Hubby removed the pieces of tape and let the lengths of thread fall loose…

…and I left it up to hubby to attach the glass balls to the ornament caps, because I knew if I did it, there would be some glass ball casualties. My job was unpacking the balls and removing the stupid stickers. And this is how it turned out (I’m still debating how to accessorize the top of the mantel):

Trying out some other accessories…. I’m kinda stumped. Maybe it doesn’t need any accessories at all? I can’t show you too much of the fireplace because that’s a makeover for another day :-)

I just love my bubble light fixture – except for the fact that I can’t get the song ♫ Tiny Bubbles ♫ out of my head. Is it in yours now too? ;-) I have to send another big thank you to Jenna at Homeslice for inspiring this project. If you want to make your own bubble light fixture, definitely check out her tutorial.

And while we’re on the topic of bubbles, today I’m guest posting over at Lisa Goulet Design, and it’s all about George Nelson Bubble Lamps. I’m also linking up to a few blog parties – Metamorphosis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, Feature Friday Free-For-All at Five Days… 5 Ways, and Sass’s Sunday Salvation Show #12 at Sassafrass Salvation.

Come on, admit it, you’ve got the song stuck in your head now too, don’t ya?!