Copper Shop Light fixture

Our club project this month was a light fixture for our room boxes.  

This is my first light fixture and I debated on whether or not to electrify it.  

I decided not to. But I did add a second tier and went a little more elaborate than the rest of the group.

 The main structure for the fixture is cloth covered floral wire.  I twisted it together and also used hot glue and some paint.

I found all kinds of jewelry fittings mainly from Hobby Lobby.  The candle stick portion are actually silver colored beads that I painted the same cream color as my ceiling.  The piece on top is a small grommet.

I ended up topping the candle stick with a bronze colored grommet and a small plastic button to help hold the lamp shades up a bit off of the candle portion.

The lamp shades are also copper/bronze colored metal beads from the craft store.

I had extra chain left over from the window shade so a glued some of that on there too!

Copper Shop Window Shade

Notice anything different about the copper shop? The copper shop has a proper window in place now with a window shade.

The window I used for the copper shop room box was one that I found at a garage sale many years ago and did not contain any "glass"

This weekend, I added a thin piece of acrylic and some wood mullions to the interior.  Initially, I was going to do individual pieces of glass, but then I  decided to do one large piece and attache a wood grid to the back.

After I cut and sanded all of the pieces of wood, I stained all of the surfaces.

Here is the window and grid glued in place.

I constructed a cover out of wood that will house the roller shade.

 I am still working on the placement of the items in the shop (below)

 I have picked up a few discontinued fabric sample books here and there

I selected one that was cream colored with copper pin stripes and cut off the zigzag edges

Once I had the fabric cut to the correct width, I glued it to a wooden tooth pick

While that was drying, I applied some glue to the wooden box and applied fabric over it.

Here is the finished window treatment box

 Here is the shade and the box.  Note that I left the paper backing on fabric and the zigzag edge on one side.

 I attached a small copper colored chain in place with hot glue, then added the rolled up fabric shade.  The shade is non-functional, but I wanted it to look real from all angles, including looking into the shop from the outside.

 Here is a view of the shade attached in place

I also decided to glue some of the accessories in place, some copper measuring cups and kitchen utensils.  I also mounted a copper framed mosaic piece of art that was an estate sale find.

To see more posts about our Tulsa Miniature Club room box project, click the Copper Shop label below. 

Copper Shop Side Yard

We learned a technique for making morning glories out of paper last month at our local miniature club meeting.  I decided to add them to my copper shop.  We are each working on a room box in the club and I decided to make mine a copper shop.

I debated on how to attach them to the building.  For now, I glued a small piece of wood.  I may add a box around it.  I came across the painted metal trellis at Hobby Lobby in the garden fairy collection in the floral department.

I drilled a couple of holes in the wood and glued the trellis in place.

We made a couple of vines of the morning glories at our monthly club meeting last month.

I also attached it to the building with a couple of bent straight pins and some glue up high.  (I may have to add some paint to the straight pins)

The flower is circle that was punch out of blue paper.  

The paper was "shaped" with a stylist over the piece of foam to the right.

After the bloom was shaped, I added a little dark blue eye shadow and a drop of yellow paint.

The bloom and then some leaves were glued with craft glue to floral wire.

I weaved the wire through the trellis to hold it in place then strategically added a few drops of craft glue at the base and on the trellis.

We had worked on some other paper flowers that were punched from colored paper in a previous class and so I added those to the mix.  They consist of a paper bloom attached to a piece of floral wire with craft glue.

Here is a photo of the my stopping point.  

If you look close, you can see a couple of paper punched butterflies too!

The Copper Kettle Company

I decided on a name: "The Copper Kettle Company"

I purchased an old soldering iron at an estate sale this week and decided to make a sign for the shop.  I was going to make it from brass and paint it black, but then I decided to try this copper wire instead - after all, its a copper shop right?

I have to admit, its pretty rough, but 'decent' for my first attempt with a soldering iron. I may try again with the brass instead of copper. I may be able to grind down some of the solder with my dremel? I found a design that I liked, sketched it out in AutoCAD and printed it out to scale.

The Copper Shop - Shelf Tutorial

The copper shop project is taking shape.  I went back and forth about what kind of furniture or shelves to use and came up with this.  

Here is a photo from online that was my inspiration.  The real version is available in England, made from used scaffolding and retails for just over $3,000.

I like the industrial 'Steam Punk' kind of look of these and decided to create something similar in miniature.  
  

For the wood shelves I used paint stir sticks from the local home improvement store.  They are free and just required a little sanding on one side to remove the the printing. There are made of pine and a little warped, but I think that adds to the character.

The desk section needed to be wider, mainly to accommodate my vintage Durham cash register.  I cut, sanded and stained the wood.  The next step was clamping them together so that I could drill the holes for the pipe supports.

Here the stack is with two of the holes drilled.

Here are all of the wooden pieces laid out.  The bottom shelf is on the bottom, the top shelf is on the top.

I added a drawer to the underside of the desk.  These different pieces of wood show how it was constructed.  Once I was all in place, I sanded and stained it to match.

 I used two different sizes of styrene tube to create the pipes.  The later size fits nicely over the smaller size.   I was able to find this at a local hobby railroad shop.

Using a heat gun, I was able to bend the pipe into shape and let it cool.  This sounds way harder than it actually is.

I cut the fittings from the larger pipe.

I cut the pipes to desired length, counted how many fittings I would need and also hole punched some cardboard for the area where the fittings hit the wall and floor.

I Painted all of the plastic pieces with an oil based hobby paint because I didn't want to take any chances of the paint not sticking to the plastic

  

Here was a dry fit.  I put the unit together before I installed it in the shop.

Here is a view of the dry fit in the shop.

After glueing in, I decided that I needed to make the pipes a different color.

This shows the copper accent wash on the pipes and the built-in desk drawer.

I also modified a half round X-acto kit table by adding a bottom shelf to it for the display.

Here is another view.  Still working on the placement of the copper and I have some items to hang on the wall.  

Still a lot to do: windows, wall covering in the dormer, window coverings, and some exterior work.  I think that we are making a light fixture in class? 

To see how we got started on this project and the inspiration click HERE