DIY bottle lamp

Today's post is just me showing off the new lamp which we made using a glass bottle as a base. Last year, when we had gone for strawberry picking at a local farm, they had some gallon cider jugs (like this) out to take for free. I have a thing for glass and I just couldn't pass up a beautiful and free glass jug, even though I had no idea what to do with it.

I looked around for ideas sporadically on the internet and I finally decided to make a lamp out of the bottle. We got a Bottle Lamp kit from walmart and a lamp shade with ring with goes under the lamp.

The lamp kit makes it very easy to convert a bottle into a lamp. There are lots of tutorials on the internet for bottle lamps (like this). I did not drill a hole in the bottle for the wire, like some tutorials say. I just let the wire hang behind and it is not very noticeable at all.
I had used a plain lamp shade and the lamp was looking a bit boring. I decided to dress it up with ribbon. I found a nice ribbon at Michaels. Later, while browsing through the clearance section of Walmart, I found a ribbon with beads dangling from it.

After coming home, I found the beaded ribbon was a little bit short in length to go around the bottom of the lamp shade. So, I left about 2 cm on each of the four sides of the shade and stuck the ribbon. I still had the black and gold ribbon from Michaels. It was pretty long. So I stuck that ribbon on top of the beaded ribbon so the plain edges were not as noticeable. Then I thought the ribbon might work well on the top border of the lamp shade too. It did work and I love my lamp even more now.

How beautiful does it look lighted up? :)
I had also toyed with the idea of turning the bottle into a diy gold mercury glass but I really like the transparent look specially when lit up. Maybe the mercury glass should wait for another project. BTW, the bottle is placed right next to our main door so there is that container (which previously held frozen samosas) behind it holding wallets and stuff to grab before heading out the door. All of this is placed on top of a produce box from Costco over which I draped a duppatta which I no longer use. I know, this is the height of cheapness :) but this is what temporary living does to you. The more stuff we have, the more we need to dispose off when we move.