Recycling plastic bottles into light shades

After breaking a glass shade on my kitchen pendant, trying to find a replacement shade proved impossible. Time to take a look through my collection of plastic bottles to see if I can come up with an alternative to recycle plastic bottles into replacement lampshades!

 

The original kitchen pendant light was fitted about 5 years ago and after breaking one of the glass shades I discovered replacements were no longer available. Not wanting to fork out to replace the entire fitting, I used 2 litre juice bottles to make plastic lamp shades.

While I thought the finished project my look a bit cheesy - it didn't. You can't even tell the shades are plastic unless you stand very close! An added advantage of this project is that the kitchen is better lighted, since the red glass shades didn't really brighten up the space.

 

 

For the project I used 2 litre plastic juice bottles. The bottles themselves are already imprinted with a nice design, and this also makes cutting them up easier.

Use a sharp craft knife to remove the bottom section of the bottle and then trim with sharp scissors for a straight edge.

Obviously these bottles might not work on every single fitting, but you can always cut away at the top of the bottle if you need a larger opening. What have you made with plastic bottles? We love it when you share your projects.