Step 1
Begin by washing the demijohn or bottle with warm, soapy water. Allow to dry thoroughly. Swaddle the demijohn in an old towel to keep it stable on your work surface and prevent excess vibration when drilling. Decide where you want to drill the hole for your lamp cable to go – we placed ours 4cm up from the base of the demijohn.
Stick a piece of masking tape over the point you want to drill – this will prevent the drill bit from slipping. Wearing safety glasses, use a drill with a diamond-tip bit to carefully and slowly drill a hole through the side of the demijohn. Remove the masking tape.
Step 2
Feed the cable cord set up through the bottle and out of the demijohn neck, ensuring you see some of outer PVC and the stripped ends are poking out the top. Take a pencil and mark where the cable enters the hole you drilled. Then pull the cable out through the top of the demijohn until you get to the area you marked.
Step 3
Take the cord grip and push the cable through one of the holes until the grip reaches the mark in the cable. Hold the grip with one hand and feed the end of the cable back through the second hole, ensuring the cord grip is still at the marked piece of cable. Then pull the cable back, so the cord grip stops and sits inside the bottle behind the hole you drilled. You want to be able to see a little bit of the outer PVC of the cable sticking out the top of the bottle. Fill the demijohn to your desired height with sea glass or coloured glass nuggets.
Step 4
Take the rubber bung and a 13mm spanner, hold the bung in one hand and tighten the top nut until the bung fits tightly into the demijohn neck. Once the bung is in place, take the nut cover and place it over the bung to hide the brass parts of the bung. Separate the lamp-holder into its three sections and screw the bottom section onto the bung’s thread.
Step 5
Wire the lamp-holder connection unit following the manufacturer’s instructions and carefully push the connection into the lamp-holder’s bottom section. Next, screw the top section of the lamp-holder onto the bottom section, ensuring it is correctly aligned, and gently tighten it up.
Step 6
Time to decorate! If you want to create the coastal effect pictured choose three shades of acrylic paint – we chose blues and greens. Water the paint down, then working with the darkest colour first, paint a band around the bottom of the lampshade. Brush a layer of water across the edge of the paint to soften it.
Working towards the top of the shade, add a band of the medium colour, followed by the lightest tone at the top. Keep the paint watery and brush the areas where the colours meet with a little more water to create an ombré effect. Carefully dab away any excess moisture with a paper towel to prevent the colours from running. Allow to dry thoroughly, then fix the shade onto the lamp base and add a lightbulb to finish.
