Quick, Easy & Frugal Homemade Hurricane Lamps
January 22, 2010 by Jenn @ Frugal Upstate
Filed under Crafts/DIY
My home has a lovely carved wooden double mantle with a beveled mirror. I love it, but honestly I find it a little difficult to decorate. It is so gorgeous & massive that things seem to just sort of fade into obscurity on it. I want to be able to change my decorations with the seasons, and of course I don’t want to spend a fortune doing it!
So what’s a frugal gal to do? I wanted something with a little more presence than my current candlesticks with little gold berry rings (Candlesticks, candles & decorative rings were all purchased at The Dollar Tree).
When I saw this tutorial over at Made By Stephie for DIY Hurricanes I was blown away. It had never occurred to me that I could make my own footed glass hurricane lamp. (Note: similar glass footed hurricane lamps run for over $50 online!)
First I scoured my local Goodwill for appropriate vases & candlesticks. Since I planned on placing the hurricanes on either side of the mirror I needed to find two glass vases that matched and were wide enough to place a short candle inside. Of course the candlesticks also needed to match, but those usually come in pairs.
It wasn’t too hard to find some matching vases-but many of them had necks that were just too narrow. I finally got lucky and found these vases for $1.99 each. The candlesticks were easy-there were 8 matching one for $1 each. I only bought two of course.
One of the vases looked a bit yellow-but I figured that was due to grime and a good scrubbing would take care of it. If not, they’d be separated by the width of the mantle, so hopefully I’d be the only one ever to notice.
Making the hurricanes was dead simple. You just glue the vase to the candlestick. It is so easy that I can barely call it a craft! By the way, I use E 6000 glue for things like this.
Tada! Two one of a kind hurricanes for only $6.
If you want to try using it a bit differently, you could flip it over and add a thick pillar candle.
Yeah, ok, so that look isn’t for everyone. Some other possible uses would be as a footed vase, or even as a pedestal/cakestand for a buffet (just place a pretty plate on top).
Check out Erik Homemade for an alternate version that throws a candy dish into the mix!
