DIY of the week: Colorful chandelier

I am very enthusiastic about sharing this project with you because it has taken me the whole week! To be precise I started this project a week before and now spent this week doing "the finishing touches". As I have not worked with tin before I had to learn and plan all over again during the project. It was great fun but also challenging. I wanted to make you a small tutorial and show how I made this. Maybe it inspires you to try this material and different techniques that I used. I am sure there is plenty of ways what to do from old tin jars. This time my aim was to show how you can use recycled material in a way that does not highlight recycling when you place it to your home. Tin is just material among others that happens to be free if you choose to use recycled tin.

So lets get started with the project. Below you can see how to make leaves and flowers.

First about equipment. Use good quality working gloves that protect you from cuts (tin is very sharp!) and protective eye-wear. Earmuffs are also good when hammering. Then you will need tin scissors, wire cutters, a ball pein hammer, scissors, tongs and a pike.

Then you can see a cutting plan for a normal tin. First using tin scissors cut of edges (black line). Then cut the tin to a rectangle shaped sheet. After this take the scissors and cut the sheet to small rectangles as the green lines show. Now it is easy to cut leaves from the smaller pieces. Then use the ball pein hammer to make the leaves flat and pike to make a small hole for the wire. Fold a leaf to its shape by using tongs. Now the leaves are ready to put into a wire. Twits a leaf at a time to fasten it to its place. Leave couple of centimeters between leaves. Paint the garlands with spray paint. Use a lighter shade of green to draw the lines.

Now we make the flowers. You can use the top and bottom from a tin or round tin covers that you get from bottles, glass jars etc. Begin by cutting straight lines like in the first picture. Then round the petals. Hammer the flower to make it flat and use pike to make a hole for the wire. Spray paint to wanted color. Then plan how to decorate the flowers. I browsed some books about Indian style decorations and draw notes. After the decorating session put a bead into the middle of a metal wire and fold the wire to u-shape. Put the ends of the wire through the flower. Now you can easily hang the flowers.

Now spray paint a plain chandelier and decorate it with the leaf garlands, flowers and beads. Glass beads are very expensive so I recommend that you check your local flea market.  I found a small bag of worn jewelry for 3 euros. It does not matter if the beads have lost a little bit of their color. I also buy craft supplies from sales. I bought the Indian beads already at autumn sale for 45 cent per small bag.

I really like how this chandelier looks now. It fits better to my home and it matches perfectly to the crocheted lamp in my blue corner.  I have had this chandelier for six years and the last two years in a storage. This is one way to get new look for an old piece. 

Now I will change for sewing and knitting for a while. Though, I have lots of more ideas for tin... :)

Sannu