Flat Foldable Paper Lamp

For a long time i have wanted to make a paper lamp. When one of my teachers showed me Instructibles and that there was a contest for making something out of paper, I finally got the motivation to sit down and make a proper lamp design. I found some cheap flexible LED lights and used thick paper so that the lamp wouldn’t be too strong. My goal was to create a decent sized mood light for my bedroom. I ended up with this design which i am quite happy about.

This is the first time i make an instructables. If there are any steps that are unclear, please let me know and i will try to clearify.

Tools needed:

• Cutting mat, preferably one with 30- and 60-degree angles marked, if not you will need a protractor.
• Steel ruler, for cutting along.
• Plastic ruler, for creasing along.
• Craft knife.
• Some tool to crease the paper with.
• ~160-220g A3 paper. (The LED lights i used where quite strong so 220g paper worked for me). I use 8 pieces in my lamp, but you can make it taller or shorter by adding or removing 2 pieces of paper.
• Double sided tape. Glue works, but i strongly recommend tape.
• Pencil and eraser.
• Pencil compass.
• Flexible LED strip or any other light source you'd like. I used a 3-meter strip of flexible LED lights.

The first step is to cut the paper into a parallelogram. If you have a cutting mat with a 30-degree line on it, place the paper into the corner and cut along the line. Turn the paper 180 degrees and repeat. For my lamp I made 6 pieces like this.

Next up is dividing the paper into 4 sections along the longest side. 3 of the sections need to be the same size and the last one is for glueing the papers togheter. For the A3 paper i used, i made a mark at 11 cm intervals, leaving a bit more than 1 cm for tape. I then marked on the other side and drew connecting lines.

The drawn lines where only creased in the actual lamp. If you choose to mark the lines with a pencil, there may be marks showing when done if you put a lightsource inside.

Next up is creasing the diagonal lines. If you’re using a mat with angles marked, just place the paper in the corner and crease along the 30-degree line.

You will see that the diagonal creases cross the creases from the previous step. Crease lines along these connecting points. You will want to end up with a piece similar to the last picture in this step.

The green area is where tape or glue should be applied.

For all the pieces i cut off this small corner part. This is optional, but makes connecting the units

For 2 the 2 top units i cut away the long part for tape or glue. Since they won't be connected to any more units above, this part is unnecessary.

The red lines indicate where to make a mountain fold and the blue lines are valley folds. Fold these lines before connecting all the units togheter.

Make 6 units. You could make more or less, but i recommend at least 4 units.

After folding all the units, it is time to connect them. Make sure that the finished connected paper has exactly 6 horizontal sections pluss the one for glue.

Tape or glue so that the flaps are hidden inside the lamp for a clean look.

Take your time and make sure the creases align.

When you have finished connecting all the units, it is time to make the collapsable cylinder.

I higly recommend testing how it will connect before applying glue or tape. It is impossible to connect it without collapsing it a bit.

I split the tape into segments so i can glue a bit at the time.

Take your time and make sure that the edges align properly and the paper doesnt tear.

The video shows how the body should be able to be flat folded.

The flexible LED strip I bought had tape in the back side, so it was easy to just attach on the inside. I worked in a spiral pattern, constantly making sure that I did not prevent the lamp from being flat foldable with the tape.

To make the top and bottom, take the lengt of one segment from step 2 and use a pencil compass to create a circle with that lenght in radius. I devided into 11 cm segments, so thats what i will be using here.

make a circle, then with the same lenght on your pencil compass, put it on the line and mark a new point on the line. Move the compass to the newly marked spot and continue around until you have 6 points marked up.

Make creases in a straight line between adjacent points

After creasing between the points, cut away the parts marked. This leaves you with a 6 pointed star. You will want to have a small flap on each side for glue or tape. I left 2cm on each side for tape

Fold along the creased lines and apply tape or glue to the flaps.

If you have any wire going to the light, cut a hole for it before taping the bottom onto the body.

The tape is applied to the top, then these are folded in underneath before being placed on top/bottom of the lamp.

Take your time and align the edges to create a clean seam.

That is it. The lamp is now done.