Mini Lighthouse Lamp

Hi All,

I love decorating my house with an unconventional or "one of the kind" idea and reuse / recycle items found at home. In this instructable , I will be reusing old glass jar, wooden skewers, Whiskey bottle packages, popsicle sticks and cardboard ( from Shirt packaging)

I will be use different techniques in this article and it should be safe for beginners to replicate.

Please share your comments and feedback

Materials

• Cardboard Cylinder ( 3.75" diameter and 12" height)
• Pebbles or small construction stone
• Popsicle sticks
• Skewers
• 0.5" Plywood
• 5mm MDF sheet
• 0.5W LED bulb
• B22 Bulb Socket
• 3ft Copper wire
• 2 pin AC plug
• Black Thread
• White cement

Tools

• Hot Gule gun
• Black, white and brown acrylic paint
• Wood polish
• Drilling machine
• Jigsaw
• Hacksaw
• G Clamps
• 2mm and 35 mm drill bits
• PVA glue or Fevicol

• Before starting sort the pebbles or construction stones by
  • Size
  • Shape
  • Thickness
• This is important as this reduces time spent on finding the right stone for the space
• To make window and Door frames, I used longer stones, I arranged them on my table first and then ot glued them on the cardboard cylinder
• Then fill the space between the window and the door
• Next fill the top and bottom borders, This makes it easier when finishing
• Fill in the gaps.
• Depending on the quality of your hot glue gun and glue sticks, the stones may fall randomly. Just be patient and glue them back
• I coated a thin layer of white cement to fill in between spaces
• Let it dry for 3 to 4 hours
• The white cement also covers stone, which is undesirable, use dry brush technique to regain the natural stone colors
• I used diluted black acrylic paint with very less paint in the brush to cover the stones

Side Note : I first tried using white cement and placing stones, but was careless and whole thing just fell off

• I am making this part using cardboard, that I recovered from Shirt packaging material
• Since my tower is now 4" diameter after stone work,
• I cut a 4.5" diameter, cardboard circle
• Then cut a piece at 110 degree and fold it carefully to make a cone
• Use paper tape to join it
• I tried coating with thin layer of white cement, but it fell off, So covered it with more paper tape
• This size is based on the glass bottle that I will describe in the next step

One could have used small jar too, I could not find one at my home so decided to cut a larger jar to size that i wanted

• This was an olive jar bottle, that I cut using my bottle cutter.
• I scored the jar at appropriate length
• Then using Candle and ice method, cut the bottle into 2
• Using 220 GRIT sandpaper, smooth out any sharp edges
• I am using the bottom piece and the saving the top of the jar for another project in future
• Cut a piece of baking paper and stick it inside the glass jar, this will help in defusing light further

• On a 5mm MDF plank, cut a 4.5" circle using jigsaw
• Drill 2mm holes (8) at the border for railing or fences
• Drill 2mm Drills (4) to secure the glass from outside
• Drill a hole of 30mm at the center ( image in next steps) for the bulb to fit in
• Fit skewers of suitable length for glass jar and fences

• To fit the lantern on the base tower, we need a "inside cap" arrangement
• First we drill a 35mm hole 15mm plywood
• Cut its corners to fit inside the tower as shown
• Now using PVA glue o fevicol, stick the base board from previous step to this inner cap piece
• Also before glueing, I have inserted the first piece on a bulb holder, on which we can fit the remaining part of the bulb holder
• Clamp the arrangement for drying

• Insert a wire from the back of the tower
• connect bulb holder and a 2 pin AC plug
• Check if the connections are not loose
• Insulate any wires or connectors, where needed

Windows and Door

• Based on the size and shape of the window and door, cut cardboard piece as shown
• Using popsicle sticks cover them
• Cut the excess
• Stain the popsicle sticks with brown paint
• Then coat wood polish on them
• Hot Glue the wind and door on the tower as shown

Lantern Fences and Base

• Paint the base, skewers and top with brown acrylic paint
• Coat them with wood polish
• Using black thread make fence ropes
• The thread may expand in future and fall off from their position
• So secure them in place by using pva glue or fevicol

Tower

• By now many pebbles or stone must have dropped due to bad hot glue
• Hot glue them in place again

• Since this lamp uses 0.5 W LED bulb, it does not get hot even after 8 hrs.
• Due to stone it get a bit heavier and stable. cannot be
• To change bulb, just lift the Glass jar and change the bulb
• If you are replacing the bulb, we may have to open the top for the heat to dissipate, just like actual lighthouse

Find a suitable spot to place your new lamp and Light it up

Please share your comments and suggestions