Let there be light.....

Now that the hallway is almost done, I had one last thing to do...

Figure out what to do with the light. 

I wanted to change out the light but when we investigated, we realized that due to circumstances beyond our control, we would only be able to convert the can light to a small pendant light.

That didn't work for me.

Enter the internet......

I saw several versions of faux capiz shell shades, but this was by far my favorite.

I figured I could do this.

Little did I know how big a project this would be.....

There are a ton of tutorials out there on how to do this so I'm just going to give a brief overview.

I found an old plant hanger in the garage and sprayed it a creamy white.

First thing I did was lay down three sheets of wax paper between two sheets of parchment paper and iron them.

It's quite possibly the only time I've used an iron in the past 10 years.

The wax paper then gets cut to make the "shells". 

Since I was hanging this in the hallway I didn't want round shells.

I don't know why.  I just wanted something angular. 

I cut my "shells" into diamonds and then used a dot of hot glue to attach each shell to a length of fishing line.

This is where the phrase "shit ton of work" comes in....

I would love to be able to tell you how many shells I made, but I have no idea.

I can tell you that I began working on this in the beginning of October.

It didn't get finished until the day before Thanksgiving. 

Once I FINALLY had the shade done, I sprayed all the shells with this to give it a little sparkle and depth. 

I liked it, but I wanted it to be a little fancier, so like Miss Bee, I added a prism....

Once it was finally done, Brian simply screwed some hooks into the ceiling around the can light and we hung it up.

And now, some pictures.....

Before

After

The light is on a dimmer so I played with it at different settings....

Is it perfect? 

No.

But, it definitely works.  

And once it was it was done I wasn't sure what I was going to do with all my free time.

Until I saw the large pile of ironing Brian and the kids made for me.

(Excuse me while I go hide the iron for another ten years.)