Valentine Heartland - Decorative Lamp A.k.a. Land of Hearts

Love inspires!! isn't it? Thats exactly what happened when I thought of making something for my beloved for this valentine's day. I call this Heartland because it has so many hearts (heart shaped craft mirrors) and it depicts (at least according to me) as if hearts are growing from tiny little ones to the bigger ones, each ready to be taken or stolen by someone who is going to love them forever.

So thats the love story... lets begin with the instructable. 

Step 1: Stuff That You Will Need

This is purely a work of art, other than what is necessary to make this decorative, let your creative juices flow to decorate it further.

This is what you will need, most of the stuff I already had, the stuff which I had to buy was cheap in India too, I believe other counties or regions will have it cheap as well. 

1. A round scrap wood (you can experiment with a square too). Mine is timber wood, you can use a plywood or similar too.
2. Sand paper no 120
3. Some wood polish (some sort of Polyurethane compound. In India,  used Asian Paint's Touchwood)
4. Some kebab skewers, keep 20-30 handy (6" or 8" or both) 
5. Heart shaped Craft mirrors (at least 2 different sizes, I used 10 smaller and 10 slighly bigger ones)
6. Round small craft mirrors (10-12 should do)
7. 1 watt LED light with driver (you can find it in any electrical store in home lighting segment), I already had it.
8. Hot Glue gun
9. A cutter (paper cutter will do or use a garden pruning tool)
10. A hole saw (to drill a small hole).
11. A power cord for lamp
12. A pencil (to mark)
13 A household drill.
14 A dry cotton cloth.
15. Oh...almost forgot this , a geometrical compass.

The pictures in this step are only for items which you need to be sure of, other items are simple and easy to understand.

I had actually drilled a small hole already in the center of circular wooden base before I realized that I forgot to take a picture, sorry about that.

Step 2: Preparing the Land (base) of Heartland- I

Now we need to prepare the land for our Heartland. Here you go:

1. Using the compass draw circles within each other equally distanced from one another, see the picture below. By the way its easier to draw circles before you drill a hole in the center, I did it later and found it difficult.
2. Now using pencil mark some small dots on the circles, keep counting dots so that you can you match it closer to the count of skewers.
3. IMPORTANT : Keep the dots not too close to each other. See the picture to have an idea.
4. Now using the drill and make holes on the Dots, use the drill bilt that matches the thickness of skewer sticks.
5. IMPORTANT : Its important that when you drill, you drill straight, so that when we insert stick inside them, they stand straight and don't look titled.
6. Once you finish drilling holes, apply some sand paper to make the surface smooth. (this step may not be required if you use plywood, nevertheless it will only add to its beauty. )

Step 3: Preparing the Land (base) of Heartland- II

Before we polish the wooden base , lets drill a deep hole for wiring the LED light.
WARNING : Do this carefully because the wood is circular and may get slipped away when you drill and you may injure your hand, use a clamp instead to hold the wood.  

Once this is done, do as follows:

1. Try inserting sticks in the holes you just did to see if your arrangement looks as desired, this will help you find out any holes which are not drilled straight. The randomness of holes is the beauty here.  
2. Clean the wood with a dry cotton cloth, sand off any uneven surface, clean again.
3. Polish the wood using Polyurethane or similar stuff.
4. Leave the wooden base to dry for over night. (see the picture, how it will look after its dried)

 While the wooden base is getting dried, lets prepare the hearts in the next step.

Step 4: Land and Heart Union

Remember I told you to keep a count of the holes you drilled in the wooden base. Lets say the count is 30, My arrangement has 10 Big hearts, 10 small hearts and 10 circular mirrors. Pick 10 8-inch sticks, 20 6" sticks. Stick the hearts and round mirrors on the sticks. See the picture. (Sorry I don't have picture of small hearts and round mirrors, but you got the idea, don't you ;-))

After the wooden base is fully dried (I left it overnight but some Polyurethane paints dries quickly too.) . Do as follows:

1. Insert the LED light in the middle hole so that the LED wire is passed through the passage we drilled, if the hole in the center is perfect, the LED light will fit (remember to remove the square frame), my hole was little bigger so i padded it with some tape. I also used some decorative crystals (used for decorating cars) to cover the space around the LED.
2. Once the light is fixed, connect it to a wire and test if its working.
3. IMPORTANT: We have to make sure all our mirrors are facing in one direction, start fixing the sticks in the holes, you may need to cut the sticks to adjust heights, my arrangement is as follows:
   1. I kept 4-5 big hearts as tallest.
   2. 4-5 Big hearts little taller than small hearts
   3. Small hearts smaller in height than big hearts with variation in their heights.
   4. Remaining holes are filled up by the round mirrors, I kept their height really low (as they are depicting infant hearts :-))    

Kudos!!! your HeartLand is ready.

TIPS:

1. I drilled many wrong holes and it was difficult to keep the stick straight in those holes, so I used hot glue to keep the sticks straight, just make sure such stick are pointed at the end.
2. You can also decorate the side of wooden base using the same crystal stickers.
3. LED was my choice, you can use any light if you can manage to hide it inside the base

I am sorry if you find my english very raw. If you like this iBle, please vote for me.