Winging It
A flea market chandelier with eight arms wired for bulbs becomes a frothy wedding-cake chandelier to hang over your all-white bed in a white-on-white bedroom. Extend the bulb fixtures to run through candle-shaped cylinders so you can screw in clear, flame-shaped bulbs at the top of each cylinder. Before adding the bulbs, spray the entire fixture and its hanging chain white. Gather mini-skirts of white tulle to slip around each "candlestick," and string loops of crystal beads, prisms and pendants from arm to arm so they hang in arcs below the chandelier. Sew a long sleeve of white velvet or moire satin to slide over the hanging chain and bunch it into gathers. Cluster several sizes of white organdy butterflies around the center of the chandelier, inside the ring of "candles." Hook it up inside a white ceiling medallion; add the light bulbs and admire your frothy confection.
Faux-Capiz Shell Chandelier
Make a budget-friendly chandelier from waxed paper, thread, a hole punch and an iron. A round cake cooling rack or a wire basket supports strands of white circles that look just like capiz shells. Iron three sheets of waxed paper together between sheets of parchment -- to protect your iron and board from wax. Use a large decorative punch, about 1.5 inches in diameter, to make the waxed-paper circles. Sew strings of circles together into strands long enough to drape over the wire form -- you'll need a lot of circles to make the strands. Roughly calculate how many circles to sew together by how long you want your strands, and vary the lengths of strands hanging from the inside of the form -- longest -- and along the outer edge -- shortest. Slip the chandelier over a ceiling-mounted light fixture and enjoy the soft glow through the drift of hanging "shells."
Painted Parasol
A painted paper or silk parasol is as romantic as a love poem when you upend it to make a glowing, twinkling chandelier. Find a fabric or paper umbrella in a delicate color, scrolled all over with a painted design of vines and flowers. Prop it securely open and turn it upside-down. Cut the umbrella handle to an appropriate length, screw in an eye-hook and attach the umbrella to a ceiling fixture. Drape a string of tiny, twinkling fairy lights around the parasol's spokes to create a glittering, luminous edge. Some ceiling lights have a socket in the base to plug in the light string. Alternatively, have an electrician wire the lights into the existing fixture, or run an extension cord from a baseboard socket, up a corner wall and to the parasol chandelier.
Winter Garden
Recycle holiday icicle lights into an ice-fall to shine in a romantic bedroom. Wrap a mini-hula hoop in satin ribbon; silver and white magnifies light, but any pale color that complements your decor is fine. Make a tripod of medium-width white satin or grosgrain ribbons to use for hanging the chandelier from a ceiling hook. Twist a garland of white or pale silk roses around the beribboned hoop or attach single flowers individually with thin silver craft wire. Create a web of criss-crossed clear monofilament line in the center of the hoop and suspend clear holiday tree ornaments to hang down at different heights and reflect light. Finally, fasten a string of clear or white icicle lights on white -- not green -- wire around the rim of the chandelier. Plug the an extension cord for an explosion of wintry glitter.
Tags: lights into, chandelier from, circles together, extension cord, hanging chain, icicle lights