Conch Shell Pendant Night Light

My Dear Instructables Crazy People:),

Ahh..it feels so good to make a lighted object after such a long time. In reality I never stopped thinking about making lamps & lightings but I was giving a trial in other areas of creativity. :D

"When you want something the universe conspires in helping you achieve it"- The Alchemist.

Isn't it so true?

I wanted to make a different styled lamp. I think some of my ideas were unique yet I was not motivated for a go-ahead until 2 days back When I found a big conch shell while cleaning my backyard where I keep my garden supplies (Soil etc.). It reminded me of my first visit to a sea shore in South India, where I found this conch shell. I was a kid and the feeling was no less than finding a Genie lamp of Aladdin that time

And I decided to use the shell for making a new lamp, a different one, a pendant. 

Lets get started. Oh.. please vote for me if you like this ible :).

Step 1: Gathering the Required Stuff

You would need following items to make a night light like this: (You can check some items in the image above)
NOTE: Please ignore the chain in the image above, I initially thought of using the chain to hang the shell but later I chose the metal tube and found it a much better option

1. A Conch Shell.
2. A Nose Plier.
3. Earthing or Ground Wire.
4. A metal tube (Thickness like a pencil).
5. Some wires for lighting.
6. LED 1 watt with driver or LED bulb small enough to go inside the shell. I had a spare LED fixture which I bought for lighting my almirah. I found it suitable for this job. 
7. Insulated tape (May not be required in your case)

You may choose to use your own lighting mechanism. I had no other option :).

Lets make some prepration now in the next step

Step 2: Wrap the Shell

You may have noticed the picture in step 1 that the shell looks dirty and has lots of dust on it. I used some liquid dish washing liquid using an old toothbrush and cleaned the shell as good as I could. See Image 1.

It might have been easier to just drill a hole in the shell and hang it but I did not want to hurt the natural beauty of the shell and decided to wrap it using wire (The idea came from a jewelry pendant made using a tiny conch shell, probably artificial.)

1. Take around 2 feet of wire and create a square-inside-square design as shown in Images 2a-2d using nose pliers.
2. Hold the design right below the shell and wrap the shell such that if you hold the wire from top, the shell should not fall down (Image 3)
3. After wrapping is done, cut off access wire keeping a little extra to make a small square design at the top( Image 3).

Looks beautiful ..right?

You are almost done, Lets jump to next step for making arrangements to hang the shell and put some light in it.

Step 3: Hang and Light Up

The idea of using the metal tube instead of chain was to hide the electric wire as much as possible. Lets attach the tube with wire & light and complete the lamp.

Like I said earlier, you can choose a better method of lighting the shell, I chose this because most of the stuff was already available with me.

1. I took the LED fixture & removed its outer cap. I glued the reflective glass of the fixture using instant glue (Image 1).
2. Take earth wire about 1.25 feet (a little longer than metal tube) and insert it inside the pipe. (Image 2)
3. From one end, bend the wire like a hook (Image 3)
4. Attach the LED with the electric wire, insert the wire inside the metal tube, put the LED inside the shell.
5. Hang the shell by hooking up the wire from the metal tube.
6. Cut off access wire from other end keeping a little to create a loop for hanging the pendant (Image 4).
7. The ready lamp should look like Image 5

Your beautiful Conch Shell Pendant Night light is ready :). Please check other images.

Some tips:

1. No two shells are same, if you get one, you may have to adjust the way you wrap wire around it.
2. I chose LED because I had one and it fits perfectly inside the shell, you may have to try some options depending on the shell you got.
3. If you can get thick copper wire, that would look even more awesome.

Thank you for taking time to visit this ible, please do share your feedback, comments, questions in the comments below. If you like this ible, please vote for me. I promise to bring you more ibles of your likings :D.

Thanks