DIY Clothes peg lamp

This is another of those things I saw on the Internet, tried to do myself after having seen just the picture of the finished product, and it ended up taking much more time and effort than I thought. I really need to stop jumping straight into things with no planning, but I doubt I ever will.

I got some chicken wire netting, cut a rectangle with pliers, and then tied the shorter sides to make a cone. This is the lamp “skeleton”, so it might be worth planning what size and diameter you want and measuring it up, rather than improvising like I did.

After the base is ready, you can start adding the pegs in whatever pattern you want, depending on how close you want them to be. Bear in mind that the pegs will make the lampshade quite heavy (again, something I didn’t think of until it was too late!). It’ll also take quite a few pegs to make it look good, so make sure you buy enough (I ended up using 150 and could do with adding an extra row at the bottom).

I thought of different ways of making the lampshade, but as I wanted it to use it as a table lamp, I ended up just choosing to buy a cheap shade that was the closest in size as I could find (this is why measuring it and planning the whole thing before I started would’ve helped!) and putting my peg shade over it, so that it’d be a bit more sturdy and hold the weight better. You could also use a shade with a higher ring to hang it up on the ceiling, or just use heavy duty wire to create a central structure to hang it from. Or, to avoid the hassle, the best option might be to use it as a standing lamp without a base, resting straight onto the table, which means you don’t need an internal shade to hold the weight.

I still need to experiment a bit more, but this is what it looks like for now: