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West Elm Inspired Perforated Globe Pendant Lamp

April 4, 2013 by madincrafts 26 Comments

Yesterday I showed you my new dining room wall art, an Anthro knock-off plate collage. That corner of my dining room wasn’t the only one to get a designer-inspired upgrade recently. I was inspired by this West Elm Perforated Globe Pendant and thought I could make a simpler DIY version. It would give me a chance to give my Dremel a real workout.

NOTE: Since this was a complete experiment I went through the steps of the project in a very inefficient way. I will show you the steps in the order you SHOULD do them, just don’t be thrown off if the pictures don’t look like they are in chronological order.

For this project, you need two large plastic bowls that are the same size, so that when you put them together they make a large sphere. It’s best if the plastic is somewhat rigid, not rubbery, because it will be easier to work with. Cut a large hole in the bottom of one bowl with tin snips and round it out using the sanding band attachment on a Dremel. Cut a smaller hole in the bottom of the second bowl so it is just large enough to accommodate your lamp kit. Run a line of E-6000 glue along the lip of one bowl, and set the other bowl down on top of it to make a sphere. Use duct tape to keep the bowls together. Let the glue cure overnight.

After the glue has cured, create your geometric pattern with strips of duct tape torn in half length-wise. I used cheapo Dollar Tree duct tape because the adhesive is not as strong as Duck Tape and will come off more easily. Painter’s tape won’t work well for this project because it will peel off the plastic too easily.

Set up your Dremel with the largest drill bit and the depth guide set to about a half inch. The depth guide will just keep you from going crazy with the Dremel and creating wonky holes. I found that having my Dremel set at 6 was the perfect speed for creating the holes. Anything slower than that, and it wouldn’t drill through. Anything higher, and it would begin to melt the plastic around the hole.

Start drilling! The Dremel makes the process unbelievably quick. I initially thought that I would have to mark off where each hole would go, but that would have taken WAY too long. I just eyeballed the spacing as I went and attempted to keep the holes straight. The perforations on the inspiration piece aren’t perfectly spaced either, so I wasn’t too concerned with perfection.

When I peeled back the tape, the hole pattern was revealed! Keep drilling hundreds more holes.

This what it looked like after all the drilling was done and the tape was removed. Pretty nifty as it was, but not what you would call sophisticated. Nothing a little spray paint wouldn’t solve.

Just for reference, this is what the top and bottom of the pendant looked like before painting.

I rigged up a way to hang the pendant in the garage so I could paint from all angles.

Please don’t judge my garage.

Then I hit it with a few coats of Valspar Navy Satin paint. I debated between the navy and using my trusty ORB (to mimic the inspiration piece), but I just couldn’t get the idea of a sleek navy pendant light out of my head. In the end, I am glad I went with the blue because it fits in so nicely with our home.

I threaded the lamp kit into place and plugged it in. Success!

The pendant even looks snazzy when the light is off.

I haven’t decided if the pendant will have a permanent home in our blue, yellow, and grey dining room or if I will move it out to our sun porch (that hopefully will get a makeover this summer). But for the cost of a few plastic bowls and a lamp kit, we know have a chic hanging accent light that looks much more expensive than it is!

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You might like these other Dremel projects:

COLORFUL TRAY MAKEOVER

HOW TO SPRAY PAINT A FENCE

Comments

Anna says
July 18, 2014 at 1:14 am
Hello!!
Loooove this DIY and am planning on doing some similar ones in the future! I was wondering, though, if there was a certain type of lightbulb you suggest so it won’t melt the plastic. Thanks so much for sharing!!
Anna
Reply
- madincrafts says
  July 18, 2014 at 1:56 am
  Thanks so much! I generally use fluorescent bulbs these days, and they don't give off much heat. Plus, the drilled holes do vent the fixture a bit. Hope this helps!
  Reply
Roopini says
August 25, 2014 at 5:45 pm
Wow! That is so beautiful. I am inspired. Pinning it 🙂
Roopini
Let’s Make It Lovely
Reply
Una says
October 17, 2015 at 10:18 pm
Coolest part is the original color glows when the light is on giving the fixture a lot of unexpected depth. Great work.
Reply
Lori Bryan says
February 25, 2018 at 3:01 pm
How cute! I am going to attempt this, I have the light above the kitchen sink, “painted with a mixture of decoupage glue and craft paint” but as much as I use the light it’s fading. this will be sooo much better! But I do have a question , you mentioned that ure space is grey, do you mind telling me the color of grey? I have been searching high and low for as neutral as I can get color for the kitchen ceiling, I have about a dozen samples taped between the wall and the ceiling, it’s so hard to make that decision, I don’t want to go to dark but now so light it looks white. The color grey you have does any blue,green or brown hues come out strongly in it?
Reply
- madincrafts says
  February 25, 2018 at 11:25 pm
  I have two different grey paints on the wall in there. The darker background color is Ace Royal Willow Lake and the lighter grey is Ace Royal Wishing Star. They are both pretty neutral grey colors, maybe skewing very slightly blue. Thanks for the comment!
  Reply