Candle Holder Lamp Tutorial

February 5, 2011

So who’s ready to make a lamp?

For this tutorial, I’ll show you how I made my lamp, but you may need to alter the directions a bit depending on the size of the lamp you have.

Things You Need

I started with a buffet lamp.

4 candle holders from the Dollar Tree (pretend you see 4 of them here). I bought 5, so we could practice with one, but I only needed 4 for my lamp. If your lamp is shorter, you may only need 3. Be sure that the stack nicely together.

And a diamond drill bit to make the holes in the glass. I used a 1/2 inch bit.

You will also need spray paint for the base and candle holders as well as some glue appropriate for glass.

Taking the Lamp Apart

Begin by disassembling your lamp. Disconnect the wires and from the socket part by loosening the screw on the sides and slipping off the wire. I marked the wire letting me know which wire went to which screw, but that may not be necessary. I’m not electrician, so I just try to reconnect stuff the way I found it. Leave only the base and the pole holding the electrical wires. The socket just screws onto the post and is easy to remove.

I didn’t take a picture of the naked lamp. Sorry!

Painting the Lamp

Take the naked lamp outside and spray paint it. I decided to use a glossy black.

It will take several coats. Use light layers and let it dry well in between coats. Just spray the base and don’t worry about the pole. You won’t see the pole in the end anyway.

I found that propping the small parts with a dowel helps you get paint on all sides easily.

I ended up needing to go back and paint another piece the lamp needed, but I didn’t know it until the end, so you may want to spray extra pieces to save time in the end. It was difficult to know how many filler pieces you need since you don’t assemble until the end. I don’t like taking the glass globes on and off more than necessary.

Drilling the Holes

Next, you need to make a hole in the bottom of each piece of glass. This part is a little tricky, but totally doable.

Take a piece of paper and trace around the bottom of your candle holder. Fold the paper in half from side to side. Form a crease. Open the paper and fold in half again, from top to bottom. Where the two sections intersect, you have the center of your circle. Mark the center with a dot.

Place the paper under the candle holder so you can see the center mark. Mark the inside of the glass with a Sharpie. It is important to place the mark on the inside because you will be using water in the next step and you don’t want to wash your mark off.

Drilling the holes is easiest if you have two people. I purchased an extra candle holder so we could practice cutting the hole on it.

To drill a hole in glass, you need a diamond drill bit. Measure the diameter of the center pole staying in the lamp. I bought a 1/2 inch bit because was big enough to slide the pole through, but not so big that the lamp would wiggle around. You can find these bits at any major hardware store.

My husband helped me with this part. For some reason he didn’t seem to trust me with combining water and power tools! That was probably a pretty smart move. I would have had a hard time taking pictures at the same time too. So I accepted his help.

Place a towel in the bottom of your sink to help secure the candle holder while drilling the bottom. Place the candle holder on the towel with the bottom turned up towards you. Use a towel you plan to throw away in the end. When we finished, we had lots of tiny shards of glass on the towel and decide it wasn’t worth the risk of getting hurt later by a hidden piece of glass, so we threw the towel away. Just keep that in mind when choosing what to use.

When drilling through glass, you need lots of water to help keep the glass and bit cool. It also helps decrease the glass dust produced by the drill. So as my husband drilled, I used the sprayer from the sink and kept a low flow of water hitting the surface the whole time.

He had to apply a decent bit of pressure as he drilled. Do your best to keep the drill centered. Once you get started, it will form a groove and that makes it easier to keep the bit from sliding as you drill. As you get close to breaking through, the sound changes just a bit and you know that just a few more seconds you will have the hole. You need to let up some pressure at that point or you risk chipping or cracking the glass because the weight of the drill may hit the glass.

Repeat on all the glass candle holders until you have the holes finished. Sorry about the bad photos. I was working on a crafting deadline and had to take pictures at night.

Painting the Glass

I tried 3 different ways of painting these. I tried craft paint. I tried acrylic paint and finally, I got out my trusty, rusty can of spray paint. Painting it with craft paint and acrylic paint didn’t work well because it was so thick, took forever to dry and then peeled right off like it was never there. I started off with rolling paint around in the glass and it covered well, but like I said, it just didn’t hold up like I wanted. So her’s what I did.

Wipe the inside of the candle holders with white vinegar. Apparently this helps condition the glass so the paint sticks better. I didn’t do this until I tried the spray paint, so I don’t know if it would have helped the other paints, but it was a cheap and easy thing to try before my third attempt and since the final try worked, I’m also passing on that bit of info.

Hold the spray paint in one hand and the candle holder in the other. Using quick spurts, spray the INSIDE of the glass. Spraying the inside helps keep the shiny milk glass look to the lamp.

It will take several layers of spray paint before it’s fully covered. Be careful to not overspray and cause the paint to run.

Once the paint is dry, if you got some paint on the outside of the glass, you can wipe it off with acetone.

Assembling the Lamp

Once all the paint is dry, start assembling the lamp. Place the first globe over the pole and let it rest on the base. Continue stacking until all of the candle holders are on the lamp.

To help secure the lamp, you need to glue each of the candle holders together. I used E-6000, but using a glass epoxy will probably hold better in the long run.

Run a bit of glue along the bottom rim of the candle holder. I stacked mine one at a time and applied the glue once I got it on the post. There was enough room to lift up and run the glue under the candle holder. I took the top candle holder off to see how that would work and I managed to get glue everywhere when I tried to thread it over the lamp post.

Can you see the glue here?

Continue stacking and gluing the candle holders until they are all on the lamp post.

Place the remaining pieces on the top of the lamp. When I first assembled the lamp, I didn’t realize I needed the larger piece. So I took the original pictures without is since it was still waiting for a couple coats of paint. Replace the socket and place the wires over the correct screws before adding to top of the light socket.

I glued a circular piece of fabric to the bottom of the lamp to make it cute too…not that anyone ever sees it.

Now your lamp is complete!

Recovering the Lampshade

I’ll share how to recover a lampshade. It’s nothing new or different, but I figured I’d add it since it was part of the new lamp.

Since I used a  buffet lamp, the shade that was with it was not the size I needed for my new lamp. So I found a black lampshade to use instead. That shade worked, but was a bit boring and  I couldn’t find anything else I liked.

So I headed over to the fabric store and purchased 1/2 yard of fabric.

To recover the shade, iron the fabric to remove the center crease.

Place the shade in the center of the fabric and begin to draw a line approximately 1 inch above and below the lamp.

Roll the lampshade to the right and continue to draw the line above and below the shade. The lines will begin to curve upward as you roll the lamp. Be sure you have enough fabric to overlap the short ends slightly.

Cut the fabric on the lines and run a line of glue along the inside bottom of the lampshade. Take one of the short sides and fold the fabric back a small amount and glue it. This will give you a finished edge to the back of the shade. I didn’t take a picture of that part, but I can if someone need a visual.

Turn the edge of the fabric up and press into place.

Run glue along the inside portion of the lampshade at the top and press the fabric down along the top too. Run one more strip of glue where the ends overlap in the back and glue that down.

Place your new lampshade onto your new lamp and enjoy!

Posted in Crafts, House Stuff, Tutorials