Four Front Doors: Owl Lamp DIY

I love owls, and I think Halloween is so much fun. That inspired me to create this owl lamp. This is an easy project that looks impressive when finished.

To make your own, you'll need:

11x14 Picture Frame from Dollar Store
Disposable Cake Pans from Dollar Store (usually come 2 in a pack)
Single Clip Light from Dollar Store
Wax Paper and Parchment Paper
Mod Podge Glossy
Food Coloring in red, yellow, blue
Paint Brush
X-Acto Knife
Wax Paper
Duct Tape

1. Spoon Mod Podge into paint wells or plastic cups.

Add 2 drops yellow to one, two drops red to one, one drop each red and yellow to one, and two drops blue to one. Gently stir with plastic spoon or toothpick to blend color.

2. Take the glass pane out of the frame. Place it on a sheet of parchment paper. Starting with the yellow, paint the bottom portion of the glass with long wavy strokes. Then paint up to about the halfway point with orange, and the top half with red. Let it dry just enough to get tacky. This way you can go back over it for better coverage.

3. Go back over the yellow, orange, and red, and go over the top with blue. Use the brush to blend everything in. Don't worry about visible brush lines, because for this project they're actually a good thing, since it's going to represent the sky and will add interest. And don't worry if you're not good at painting. You don't have to be! I even let my six-year-old help with this part, so you can do it too.

4. Put in oven that's been preheated to 175 degrees. I just left mine on the parchment paper and put the whole thing in. Leave it in about 30 minutes. The paint will become transparent and will get quite a bit darker.

5. While that's in the oven, you can do your cutout. I printed off a silhouette of an owl from the internet. You can use any cardboard or card stock to fit, but what I did was use the cardboard insert that comes with the frame and turned it over to cut. No worrying about getting the right size, and the opposite side was black, which is perfect!

I marked out a 1-inch border all around, and then cut that out and cut out the owl. I extended the branches all the way to the border.

6. Use duct tape to cover any areas that you might have cut into. This will avoid light bleeding through when it's lit.

7. When the glass is ready, take it out and let it cool. Then put the cutout into the frame (black side facing out), followed by the glass. Here you might need a drop of glue or some double-sided tape to stick down the head/body part of the owl. You don't need much. Then over that you'll put wax paper. Push down the tabs in the back of the frame, and duct tape to secure the wax paper. (Doesn't matter what the back looks like here.)

8. Get a single clip light. Mine is from the dollar store, but I think it's a seasonal item, so if you can't find it there, you can get one from a hardware store or online for cheap. I like this kind of light because you can just flip the switch to turn it off and on.

8a. Cut a small hole in the bottom of the cake pan near a short side and in the middle, and insert the light. I wound up duct taping around the hole to reinforce it. I only used one pan, but two might work better and give the whole thing more stability.