How to Make Stylish Lamps Using POM Juice Bottles

by Deirdre Sullivan

I always thought that the POM Wonderful juice bottle is a great shape for a pretty lamp. So I scoured the Interest to see if anyone posted a lamp project using the bottle, and I couldn't find one. So I decided to create three different POM bottle lamp tutorials.

how to make stylish lamps using pom juice bottles, how to, lighting

The first DIY in this three-project series uses liquid plastic to create a mold of the POM bottle's curved form. The tutorial is based on a 50-year old how-to published by Popular Science. However, I had to make many modifications to Pop Sci's original DIY because making a cast of the POM bottle is pretty darn tricky. FYI, the lamp below uses a decorative G25 LED light bulb.

Here's the deal, the POM bottle creates the lamp's cool shape. To make room for the electrical stuff we inserted a Smart Water bottle inside the POM bottle. After we created the mold for the lamp using liquid plastic we couldn't get the Smart Water bottle out. You see after you cast the piece, you cut off the POM bottle and pull out the Smart Water bottle because they are no longer needed. The picture below shows the Smart Water bottle being removed from the second piece we casted piece.

What was the problem? The ridges on the Smart Water Bottle's neck and cap got stuck in the casted model. Also, the casting solution leaked a little bit in the same area. So we went back to the drawing board to figure out how to fix the problem. We used plumber's tape to create a watertight seal around the lamp pipe prior to casting. We also covered the ridges on the Smart Water bottles cap and neck to create a smooth surface that wouldn't get stuck. See images below.

Below you can see the assembled bottles and the casting process.

The second DIY in this three-project series explains how you can use Art Plaster to create these beautiful hanging lamps. Art Plaster costs a lot less than liquid plastic. The image below shows the Art Plaster lamps we created. You can make four lamps using one box of Art Plaster that costs less than six dollars. The lamps were wired using a candelabra cord socket that accepts E12 LED bulbs.

We even created instructions for how to wire.

The last lamp in this three-project series explains how to create a lovely table lamp using a POM bottle.

The table lamp also uses a candelabra light socket that holds a E12 bulb.

Wiring the table lamp was pretty easy. We had to snip off the electrical plug so we could thread the cut-off part through the lamp pipe. We replaced the plug with a snap in place socket. It was super easy to do.

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2 questions

Linda Carter on May 31, 2016
I was wondering if you could use the POM bottles themselves as hanging lights, as in sort of an Andy Warhol effect. Do you think the plastic water bottle material is adequate for the job? Could just use a pretty bulb if the generated heat was not a problem. Thanks so much for the tutorial! Beautiful!

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Robby Treichel on Feb 13, 2017
I like the shape of the bottle but have never heard of Pom. What is it?

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