My Magpie Chandelier!

So a few posts ago I mentioned the lovely Magpie Chandelier from Anthropologie. And how I was going to make it, cause I didn’t have an extra $5000 sitting around in a fancy lamp fund. Its more like I had $20 of change I scraped together, and a serious need to make something frivolous and fun for myself. Since I believe that we all need to take a break from work sometimes and recharge the batteries by making something completely different, that’s what I did that week. It was also a week that I really should have been working, but well, when the inspirations strikes, who am I to say “hey, kinda busy, come back later.” I am pretty much never that person. I am happy when inspiration comes knocking!

So here is the finished product: I’m feeling its pretty rad. It’s a bit smaller than the original I think, and a bit more flamboyant. I used only beads and junk from around the house, most of it are beads I got back in high school, in my hemp jewelry days, so it was really fun to get those out and make something out of them that I would see every day. The rest of it is from various bits of vintage earrings, necklaces, and bracelets that I had collected over the years and hadn’t found a use for yet. It is a true magpie lamp in every sense of the word: I filled it with shiny bits that I had been collecting for years.

This is is humble beginnings: everything is hung on wire bead cord and attached with crimp beads or wire to the hoops.
Here’s the support structure; six wires more or less the same length. These got tweeked alot as the weight was put on. The bottom wire thing is a wreath form spray painted gold to match the brass rings on top.

Heres some beads added. Oh, and chains too.

A close-up of the main body of the lamp. see all the different things on it?

And of the bottom. All the strings came together on a round wooden doughnut in the middle.
And at the very bottom, a bit of chandelier that my fellow magpie collector (and also Saturday Market cohort) Ben gave me!

All in all, I am seriously in love with this light. The light cord itself is a three dollar and ninety nine cent Ikea cord. I really did spend less than twenty dollars on the whole thing. The thing that cost me is time. It took a whole season of the wire (season two, excellent if you are interested) to make, all told, i spent about 13 hours on it. So if I were to make this to sell, it would end up costing someone about $500. Which is a pretty screaming better deal than $5000! So if anyone out there has $500 in their fancy lamp funds at home, look me up!