DIY 4 Lamps With a Board for Créativa – Presentation

As part of the Créativa fair (the big DIY fair), I was asked to offer DIY workshops around wood. The constraints were as follows:

• Something very simple, accessible to everyone
• Something achievable with few or no tools
• Something smart enough to attract visitors to the stand

And I only had 30 minutes to find my ideas… So I went with 4 more or fewer designer lamps, using Google or giving free rein to my imagination.

Articles and videos are in progress, to show you the manufacture of each lamp, from A to Z.

So I start to think about what I can make, but also how to make it. Indeed here I have to restrict myself to the minimum of tools, putting myself in the place of a visitor to the show (or an Internet user) who would have few or no tools at home. And apparently, this constraint is still important, somewhat limiting creativity.

In the end, my scribbles are done, my lamps drew, I still have to think about how to make them simply.

According to my estimates, I will need a single 200x30cm board and a pallet square. That is for 4 lamps an investment of about 7 euros in wood.

Then I had to think about the electrical part, so I opted for a sheathed wire (prettier than a classic wire) as well as rather nice sockets. With that, I had supplies for three lamps, for an amount of 26 euros.

Since I'm going to cite brands, I take this opportunity to tell you that I have no affiliation or anything else with those you'll see in the articles about Créativa's lamps, I bought everything with my money (snif), but as the purpose of these articles is to advise, guide, orient… whoever discovers DIY, I try to give the best possible advice.

I still lack enough to equip a lamp, the one I imagined myself (therefore necessarily my favorite NDRL), the MordernLed of the small name that I gave it (the one in zigzag to put it simply) which as its name suggests is LED. In addition to the rest, I therefore bought a one meter LED strip (15 euros).

As I told you previously, I limited the tools to the bare minimum. To make the 4 wooden lamps you will need:

• A handsaw (also called a hand saw, the basic saw, but I also offer a jigsaw model)
• An 18V drill (I also suggest a less expensive 14V)
• Forstner drills and bits (I'll show you that later, don't worry)
• A screwdriver
• Screws

Our Recommendation on best "German Quality" Woodworking Tools (Click To learn More)

This material is available from Amazon, all the references of which are here (I will make a reminder for each article):

The sketches being done, I move on to 3D modeling under Sketchup to give life to my lamps (absolutely not essential step). Which gives us this:

At the top left an Old Style type lamp with a lampshade, at the bottom left a square pallet lamp, at the top right a block lamp allowing the bulb to be shown or not, and finally at the bottom right that straight out of my imagination, the LED lamp, which will illuminate both below and above (the LED ribbon is integrated into the wood).

Very classic lamp, but at the same time modern. She goes everywhere. It is also the one that will have required the most wood resources from me (two 50x20xm cuts, one 20x20cm cut, two 50x10cm cuts). Via a plate and a socket you will be able to fix a lampshade. To be frank, I will not keep it, and therefore did not buy a lampshade (I added this one ). As a result, not being able to do this little assembly in real life, during the presentation of the lamps at the Créativa workshops (as a reminder on 21 and 22/01 at 2:45 p.m. for Montpellier readers), I will propose it differently, by reversing the socket which will end up inside, with therefore the bulb in the lamp, which it can serve in addition to a small stool.