Mushroom Lamp

In this Instructable I’m going to walk you through the steps of making your very own mushroom lamp.

This project is designed for those who want a little bit a woodworking little bit of crafting a little bit of all of it.

For materials you are going to need a 27“ x 27“ x .5” sheet of plywood

You also need a sheet of plywood at least 27“ x 27“ x .75” sheet of plywood. This one should be better looking than the last.

you also need a piece of wood .5 inches thick 2 inches across and at least 3 feet in length.

This is the piece you need to find yourself. It needs to be a piece of wood you found outside that is minimum of two inches diameter, and 4 feet long.

A roll of chicken wire.

A liquid glue, preferably something like Mod Podge

A light fixture with a cable

Two colors of tissue paper and you will need a lot.

The last material you will need is 3/4 inch hammer in staples, 4 inch exterior screws, and .5 inch screws and

quarter inch screws.

Let’s move to the equipment, you will need a bandsaw, belt sander, preferably a fixed blade, knife but a folder will do, impact driver, drill with a assortment of different bits, chop saw, hammer,

palm sander, paint brush, wire cutter ,spool of wire and hot glue.

The first step to making the base is cut out a 22 inch diameter circle from your not so good looking sheet of plywood And cut out one more out of your good looking sheet of plywood on the bandsaw, then take them over to the belt, sander and sand around the edges. Now use your palm, sander and sand the not so good looking sheet of plywood, smooth. Now take your .5 inch screws and drive the two pieces of plywood together with the not so good looking one on the bottom. You probably have a question why not use one piece of wood here’s the answer I don’t have one big enough and that looks good.

Now grab your live edge piece of wood and use your pocket knife to strip all the bark off this might take a while. If you have a draw knife that might work better, but I don’t so I am going to use a pocket knife.

once you’re done with shaving off the bark. Drill three small pilot holes in the bottom of the stick. Then drill three more in the base now you’re going to use 4 inch screws and drill them up just poking out of the base with the nice side facing up now you’re going to place the stick on top of the screws and drive it in all the way.

Take your long piece of wood that is 2 inches across .5 thick and at least 3 feet long and cut it into 1 foot sections on your miter saw. now cut on both sides a 45° angle on all three pieces. once that is done, you can place on equally around the base and drive them in to add support like in picture.

For this step, you are going to want to do use your chicken wire and mold a bowl like shape. Make sure it’s a couple layers thick. To fasten the top of the mushroom to the stem you were going to use a little bit of bendable wire. You need to make two loops and fasten them to the stem with quarter inch screws as shown. Now we’re going to use small zip ties. put the zip ties through the wire netting of the chicken wire and zip them close make sure the little knobs are on the underside.

For this step you were going to need your tissue paper, Mod Podge, paint, brush, and hot glue.

you are going to need to pick a color for your base of the mushroom top. I chose red next year going to need to pick a secondary color. I chose green this is gonna be the color you use for the splotches. The first layer is going to be hot glued. All the other layers are going to be put on using mod podge. Don’t use too much hot glue it might melt through the tissue paper. you are going to want to put on a lot of layers of red before you start putting on spots of green to put on red you are going to spread some glue onto the tissue paper and then place the paper on. To put on the green spots you will need to rip pieces off of a sheet of green and glue them down you want to do a couple layers thick of spots I do two layers thick. once you have finished adding the splotches, you might want to add just one coat going over the whole thing not the wood, but the whole top this will add some shine in some places.

For this step you were going to need a light fixture. I used one that uses a LED light bulb. depending on what you’re using for a light source it may need different installation for me i’m going to use the threads that were on my light bulb fixture and tighten them down onto the wires that are holding up the top I also will be using zip ties, for extra support. To hold down the cable I am using three-quarter inch hammer in staples. If you use these be very careful not to break or damage the stem of the mushroom when hammering in. I use pilot holes to make it easier.