Grocery Bag Pendant Lamp : 7 Steps (with Pictures)

Trader Joe's is one of my favorite grocery stores – yummy foods, happy people, and those cool looking paper bags!

This pendant lamp is made with one and a half paper bag. All you need is a little folding.

And the magic of origami: it can shape-shift into a much smaller object!

Step 1: Materials, Tools, & a Little Practice

Materials and tools:

paper grocery bags : if you can't get interesting looking ones, you can transform a plain bag with paint, stamp, etc
string or yarn to tie the ends
sharp tool to poke holes in paper
scissors to cut paper
pendant lamp cord
IMPORTANT: use LED light bulb, 7.5w will light up like 40 watts! very little heat = minimal danger of fire!

I designed a folding pattern for this pendant, and practice diagram you can download ( Download pattern and diagram here), or create your own!

Print the diagram out on a piece of letter size paper and practice a little. The key here is to get comfortable with the “mountain” and “valley” folds. Mountain folds are towards you, and valley folds away from you!

Step 2: Accordion Folds

After a little practice from the patterns in the previous step, the way those “mountain” and “valley” folds coming together will become easy to you!

We will be using the same pattern on a larger scale to make our pendant. Again, here's the pattern for the origami paper lamp shade we are making.

Begin with 2 paper grocery bags you like, remove the handles carefully, cut off bottom of the bag and open up the one side that is glued so it’s ONE continuous piece and ready for folding. Use the dimensions in the download diagram as a guide. It does not have to be so exact since your grocery bag might be different in size.

Now we can start with the long ( full bag) piece. Fold it lengthwise in half, then fold each of the half piece in half, repeat till you dived the whole length into 16 equal parts with these accordion folds.

Tip: be as precise as possible in this first step!

Step 3: Diagonal Folds

Fold the first row of diagonal folds, don’t worry about mountain or valley yet, just make some good creases. You can mark the next folding points with light pencil marks if that helps. After all the creases are made, fold them according to the diagram, the photos might be helpful as well.

Next, cut the second bag to half the length of this piece, and start with the accordion folds, this time into 8 equal parts
since it’s half the length. Repeat with all the folds. Pay attention that the accordion folds start and end differently than the first piece, this is not required but will make the gluing a bit easier.

Step 4: Glue and String

Join the 2 sections together using either glue or double sided tape. Just find the parts that matches, overlap them, and glue them together.

The final step is to poke holes at the top tip, and thread a string or yarn through the holes.

As you tighten the string, gently form a swirl by pushing the tabs on the inside, like in the photo above.

Tie a knot that can be loosened so you can insert a pendant cord easily.

Step 5: Dress Up the Pendant Cord

This plain pendant cord is transformed to a charming one by wrapping Sisal Twine around it and hot gluing the ends. Natural Hemp Twine would be beautiful too!