Office light feature

The holidays are over! Life can return to it's regular programming! Blogging definitely took a backseat this season. I wasn't even keeping up with my usual blog roll. I feel like I've been neglecting a dear friend. Is that weird? Eh probably but I'm at peace with it.

I've been working on creating an inspiring space to work on projects and blog posts for myself. I've been making good progress. I found a cool dumpster chair, painted my desk white, and upcycled a memo board. I still felt like my office area needed a little kapow. Just a little unexpected extra.

During my usual internet surfing, I came across these two beauties.

Source here.

Source here.

I thought that a combined version of these two light features would make a great piece of useful art, which is all I have space for in my little corner of the office. I quickly got to work, gathering supplies.  First things first, the veneer pendant light.

Materials needed:

• Veneer wood strips
• Glue
• Binder clips
• Wood stain (optional)
• Rope light
• Paper lanterns
• Small "S" hooks
• Fishing line/Clear string
• Ceiling hook

I made two pendants, one pack of veneer strips for each. I decided to stain one of the pendants a darker color, to tie in the wood tones of the desk and every other piece of furniture we own.  I left one in the natural color to mix things up a bit. I cut the veneer roll into strips and stained them with some leftover stain.

I taped the ends down with painters tape to keep my strips from curling.

The color I used!

Confession time = I applied a coat of stain, took a photo, and promptly walked away before I wiped off the excess, like you're supposed to do. So, the stain sat there for about oh. . . 4 hours. Oops. It all came out ok though.

I did have some issues with bleeding along the sides. Not sure if that would have happened if I had wiped the stain properly. It's only noticeable it you get reallllllllly close and friends/polite company should know better than to do that. At least, at my house.

After the strips were completely dry, I glued the ends of the strips together to create circles. I used the binder clips to keep the ends together while they dried.

True is helping me make sure the circles dry correctly. Keep up the hard work, True.

Once those were dry (yes, this project spanned over several days for drying times), I glued each circle together to create a sphere.

Binder clips strike again!

Once I had my spheres, it was easy enough to put it all together. 

Quick tip for you, check your rope light before you hang anything. I got all of my paper lanterns and veneer pendants strung up, suspended from the ceiling, and (when I plugged in the light) only half of the rope light lit up. I had to take everything down and restring everything back together after I exchanged the light. Please, be smarter than me. Check it first!

I knew the veneer pendants would stretch out if I hung the paper lanterns from them (because of the extra weight), so I had to rig things a little. I used fishing line to string the paper lanterns together, leaving gaps to fit the veneer pendants. Then, I attached the "S" hooks to the pendants and hung each from a paper lantern. Make sense? Probably not. I tend to make things sound more complicated than they are. Thank goodness for pictures!

S hook and string attached to the veneer pendant.

Easier to see now? The paper lanterns don't hang from the veneer. The other end of the string is attached to the paper lantern above the pendant. No extra weight stretching things out!

Here's the end result!

It looks even better all lit up.

These are just lagniappe shots because I worked hard on this and you have to indulge me. Please indulge me.

I really love it. It makes me happy and inspires me. Here's hoping it inspires me to get back to regular blogging. What do you think? Do you have any useful art in your office? Any unique pieces that make you happy? Were your holidays crazy busy too?