Soda Bottle Flower Vertebrae LED Table Lamp

Upcycled soda bottle table lamp with IKEA LED string lights.

Step 1: Material / Tools

Material:

# Soda bottles (20 fl oz) : 8

Different brand uses bottles with different shapes. It doesn’t have to be 20 oz bottles but better to stick with the same brand bottles in same size to ensure the uniformity and good fit. You only use the bottoms of the bottles for this project.

If you use bottles with smooth round shoulders (such as Pepsi bottles), you can use the top part for my other tetrapod project as well. (Look at my tetrapod project instructable). For this reason I prefer Pepsi bottles rather than Coke.

# Electric wire: Solid copper core wire with insulation.

# SÄRDAL LED lighting chain from IKEA

# Rubbing alcohol

# Cotton swabs

# Paper towel

Tools:

# Dremel rotary tool

# Small scissors.

# Sharpie (fine point)

# Small file

# Xacto knife

# Drill press (or power drill)

# Step drill bit (or regular drill bits)

# Computer / Printer / Printer paper

# Needle nose pliers

# Wire cutters

# Ruler

# Compass

Step 2: Make the First Flower

This will be your template. Try to make this one as good as you can.

Cut the bottom of the bottle.

With sharpie, mark the outline of the flower on a bottle bottom. Use cotton swab soaked in alcohol to erase your mistakes.

Make the rough cut with small scissors.

Shape the bottom with Dremel.

File the burrs.

Use Xacto knife to clean up the burrs more.

Done with the first one!

Step 3: Make More Flowers

Put the first flower on another bottle bottom. Trace the shape with sharpie. Cut the flower shape in the same way as the first one. Make 8 flowers total. If you stack them, each flower should interlock each other by alternating their position.

Ignore the orange thread in the photo. Fore this project, you don't need the thread.

Step 4: Drill, Baby, Drill

Drill the center hole on the each flower with the step drill bit. This is where the LED light will fit. Step drill bit will be a little faster for sheet material like this but regular drill bits will work just fine.

SÄRDAL LED light needs 5/16” diameter hole.

Step 5: Make Holes for the Wire Legs

Do a google image search for a drawing of a pentagon with center point and print it out. Draw lines from 5 corners to the center.

Decide where you want to put the 5 wires on the flower. Draw a circle with the compass. Where the circle meets the radiating lines will be the holes where the wire legs go through. Make sure you alternate the position of the holes. Four flowers will have the 5 holes on the convex and the other four will have the 5 holes on the concave. Place each flower on the pentagon drawing and mark the 5 dots for wire leg holes.

Drill small holes for the wire legs with Dremel. Check the size of the each hole with the wire.

Step 6: Clean Up

Soak cottons swab and tissue paper in alcohol and clean up the sharpie marks.

Bottle caps works great to keep a small portion of alcohol .

Step 7: Prepare the Wires

Cut the 5 wires in same length. Remove the insulation little by little. Leave a little bit of the insulation on one side where they will be the legs.

Step 8: Assemble the Parts

Thread the wires on the flowers through the holes.

Bend the wire legs. Install the LED lights on the center holes. File the sharp points of the wires with Dremel. Push the flowers down against to the wire legs to close the gaps. Bend the top of the wires to hold down the flowers.

Well done!

Lights on and enjoy!

Farther improvements:

Instead of IKEA string lights, make your own LED circuits and use the electric wire legs as the power line. This will give more clean finish. Use wide angle LEDs (ones that have inverted cone shaped lens) for the best results.