Original Ways to Utilize Kitchen Items to Make Light Shades

Give a special and original touch to your home by making your very own light shades out of kitchen items.

Basically, there are many ways to make a light shade. The main ingredients you will need are electricity and a bit of ingenuity. So, here in this article you can find inspiration and learn some ways to use basic kitchen items to make light shades.

Common household and kitchen items can serve as a means of creating innovative decor, such as light shades. But you may be wondering – what could these items add to the decor of a home?

Well, using these items in decor would really break through the boundaries of traditional art forms. It would also remove kitchen utensils from their conventional setting, to give a fresh, modern air to your kitchen.

Make your grater into a light shade

The shape of a four-sided grater is perfect to make a light shade. Its structure is basically a rectangular bell shape that widens. It goes from a smaller rectangle at the top to a larger rectangle at the base. And don’t forget the many small holes that will enable light to shine through them.

At the same time, its appearance as a light shade is interesting, simply because of its outer design and as it’s made of metal. It would suit perfectly in many types of decor, especially in the kitchen and in minimalist style homes.

The way to make this light shade is very simple. Just insert a small light bulb into the narrower part of the grater, or feed a cable through the top and screw a larger bulb in from the bottom. Make sure that the handle of the grater is fixed to the cable. The light will shine out through the various openings and through the base.

The strainer: a change in roles

As with the grater, you can use a strainer to make a very modern light shade. However, it would be useful to know the types of strainers, such as pasta strainers, that you could use to make light shades.

• Normally, they are circular, with a wide opening, that is a wide bell shape.
• They have fine holes, so that, the same as with the grater, they let the light shine out towards all corners of the room.
• It would be best if it was made of metal. You should avoid plastic strainers or sieves since these could melt with the heat of the light bulb.
• You could use strainers in different colors. These would give a really unique touch to your home.
• You can adjust them to blend in perfectly with the cable and the light bulb; in fact, they might blend in so well so as to almost go unnoticed since they are roughly the same shape as more traditional light fittings. This could add a subtle change to your decor.
• Visually, they break away from tradition and leave behind the norm.

The conversion of the cooking pot

It’s common to find saucepans for cooking in any home. Some can be bigger and others might be smaller, but in this case, you will need a medium-sized saucepan.  Look around your kitchen items to find one that’s perfect to make your light shades.

• Make a hole in the center of the base to insert the cable for the light bulb. To do this, you may need to talk to a specialized metal worker, since saucepan bases can be somewhat difficult to cut with normal home tools.
• Make sure it’s firmly fixed to a strong support such as thick wire, don’t just hang it by the cable. Saucepans can be very heavy.
• It should be hung like a bell, or upside down, allowing light to shine out. However, since the sides are solid, the light will be directed towards the floor.
• On the outside, it will, of course, look like a saucepan. So, it will be out of its normal place in the kitchen and will become an original and attractive feature. If you hang it in the kitchen, it will be directly linked to the functionality of that place in the home.

Decorate with kitchen items to make light shades: combined spoons

Another curious idea for using kitchen items is to use combined spoons to create light shades. This option is a bit more time consuming and requires some skill, but the result is fabulous and adds a creative touch and originality.

So, to make this light shade, you join some spoons together, making a small circle. Then, keep adding more layers of spoons to create more circles, each slightly larger than the last. Create a bell shape with the spoons, then hang the light bulb in the middle of the arrangement. You don’t have to make your spoon light shade very big; in fact, it will be a more subtle decor item if it’s smaller.

You could also use a bell, and hang spoons by their handles all around the bottom edge. Attach them so that they can move and sway slightly, instead of being rigid. This would be an excellent option for industrial style decor.