Light-up Snowman Made from Lamp Parts
This project started because I was doing laundry in the basement and while I waited for the dryer to finish I began cleaning up the workshop.
If you've ever read the children's book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie" then you'll have some idea what went on here.
First there was this light fixture...You may have seen this one before when I made a repurposed pumpkin that lit up with a battery tea light candle.
First there was this light fixture...You may have seen this one before when I made a repurposed pumpkin that lit up with a battery tea light candle.
These 3 globes were leftover from that project and they sat gathering dust on a shelf in my workshop. I was just about to throw them away when I got an idea.
There were 3 globes and I was wondering... what if I stacked them? Would they stay together? And what if I stacked them on top of this candle stick? Well, wouldn't you know it, the globe fit perfectly on the candlestick so I attached it with E6000 glue.
You've probably guessed by now, my laundry was not getting done.
I was about to attempt stacking 2 more on top of this one and make a snowman but how could I keep them from sliding off? The glue is slippery so I knew that if I left it to dry they would be on the floor in no time. So I had another idea...
The globes all had a hole in the top so I stuck a very long paintbrush from the top through all the globes to the bottom and glued them together. The paintbrush kept them from sliding. Perfect!
The next step was to gather some supplies. I needed a scarf, hat, a broom, and buttons for my snowman. The scarf was actually wired ribbon, I removed the wire and cut slits in each end.
The buttons were from a large collection I have in my workshop. At one point I used the antique buttons from my collection to create a beautiful vintage button garland. You can visit that project by clicking on the bold link.
I wanted to give the snowman some kind of arms and a broom. The arms I made using knobs that came from my very large stash of hardware. They had dangling handles that looked just like arms to me. You can see what I used on the top of this pile.
I attached everything to the globes using hot glue. I have a Ryobi cordless glue gun and I couldn't love it more!
The broom was made from a chunk I cut out of an old whisk broom. I wrapped the straw around a chopstick then wrapped it with wire. I attached the arms and the broom with hot glue.
The cute little orange nose came from the top of the original light fixture. I painted it orange and glued it to the snowman with hot glue.
As I was finishing I had another idea, this snowman would be awesome if I could get it to light up. So... I removed his funnel hat and pulled off the narrow part, it came right off. I turned it inside out and stuck it back inside the funnel going the other way.
Then using a cork light, I guided the lights through the funnel and down through all 3 globes. This was NOT EASY. The string of lights is wired but the hole in each globe is not large. After several attempts I finally got the wire all the way down to the base of the snowman, I then re-glued the funnel to the top of the snowman. The top of the cork light sticks out just enough from the top of the funnel for the switch to peek out, this way I can turn the lights on and off.
Now he's finished!
The light-up idea for this snowman was the best part!
I had one more thought after he was finished and that was to add a little "faux snow" between the candlestick and the bottom of the snowman. I'll probably do that later.
Later that night...
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