Clothespin Chandelier

I am a girl who loves a trend. You may not like trends because they do tend to go in and out of style rather quickly; however, my philosophy is to love what is "in" until it is no longer cool and then embrace change when the time comes to move on. And, since trends don't always last very long, I don't believe in spending a lot of money on them. For example, to participate in the recent neon fashion trend; I purchased this scarf for about $6.

 That way, when it's time to move on I won't feel bad about letting it go. It's the timeless things that you want to splurge on like a good pair of jeans.

I have carried this philosophy into my lighting choices. I have splurged on pieces that I think will look beautiful for years to come and DIYed pieces that might be considered a home design crime down the road.

The latest lighting trend that I fell in love with is the clothespin chandelier. I was first introduced to clothespin "art" while watching HGTV's Color Splash when David Bromstad used columns of clothespins in a home design. Check it out!

Since then, I have seen clothespin lights popping up all over the place including one of my favorite blogs, Young House Love. They made this light for their laundry room.

I loved the idea and decided I wanted one, too. They did share their tutorial if you are interested; however, I wanted mine to look a little different so here is what I did. I picked up a hanging basket and about 5 packs (250) of clothespins from the dollar store. I also purchased a Januari lighting cord from Ikea. All of my materials cost me about $20.  

The only decently priced  hanging basket I could find had these little leaves on them so I just popped them off with some pliers.

I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or how this was going to turn out. I just started playing around with the clothespins and made this little circle on top first.

And, then I added a little more....

And a little more. I kind of liked the look of this but I wanted to keep experimenting.

I just began alternating the direction of the clothespins and came up with this. I like this one because the clothespins are a little less obvious.

My next step was to put in the cord set.

I realized that it wouldn't fit with the way I had the clothespins going around the top so I had to turn them upside down.

Here it is all lit up. I'm pretty satisfied with the result but I don't think I'm done playing around with it. Actually this is a different arrangement than the one I showed before I put the light in. Who knows? Maybe it will be the ever-changing lighting fixture. When guests come over, they can take bets on what the clothespin chandelier is going to look like. Haha!

I can see this being hung over the sink in our laundry room. I don't plan on hardwiring it to the ceiling; however, I've read you can do that by cutting of the plug on the cord. That, however, is against building codes so do at your own risk. Since we want our new house to pass inspection, I will not be doing that. My clothespin chandelier might be a bit trendy, but I think it's pretty cool for now!

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