Designer Lamp With Paper Cups

Leticia Saunders
by Leticia Saunders
3 Materials
$10
1 Hour
Easy

“Upcycling” is the name of the latest trend: You can make a modern 3D lampshade out of a simple white paper lamp and waxed paper cups. The whole thing can be implemented well with a hot glue gun.

Anyone who has ever been to a lighting store or “only” visited the hardware store lighting department knows how expensive beautiful lights are. The only thing that helps is: do it yourself! Simple balloon paper umbrellas can be found in almost every household and usually don’t look really nice after a few years anyway. Small paper cups are sometimes left over after a party or you can get them for a few bucks.

Glue on the first row of cups


Assemble the lampshade according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Set the hot glue gun on the lowest setting and apply the glue to the edge of the bottom of a paper cup. Press the paper cup against the lampshade so that the edge lies against the lower edge.

Use the hot glue gun to apply glue to other paper cups and join them at the bottom of the lamp to form the first circle by sticking them right next to each other. The opening of this lampshade is seven centimeters, and the first circle consists of nine paper cups.

Continue the cup circles


Now use the hot glue gun to glue the paper cups for the next rows offset to the cups from the previous row.

Complete the luminaire


After row four, use the hot glue gun to attach the remaining paper cups in a vertical line – no longer offset, but one above the other. As the diameter of the screen increases towards the center, the distance between the cups also increases. On the other half, the luminaire diameter becomes smaller, so that the distance between the cups becomes smaller again.

When you have glued the last row around the opening at the top of the lampshade, you can hang up and connect your new balloon designer lamp .

Resources for this project:
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Leticia Saunders
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  • Carolyn Windle Carolyn Windle on Nov 15, 2020

    Very clever idea. But for me a dust collector. How would you dust it off?

  • Patty Patty on Mar 02, 2023

    Do you think painting the cup rims white would brighten it up some?

  • Patricia ruffino Patricia ruffino on Nov 09, 2023

    what a wonderful idea!

    I have hundreds of recycled K cups do you think they would work? Might be to opaque?

    I just don't know what to do with them lol

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