Painted Chimney Lamps

Patrick and I set up a fabulous backyard scene, complete with twinkling lights strewn across the trees, and solar lights anchored by the huge nopal cacti we have. Then a monsoon/haboob rolled in and ripped out one of the trees in our lovely landscape. Back to the drawing board. I went back to Lowe’s for a second round when I came across two things I had never noticed before: chimney lamps and umbrella lights. And just like that, I came up with a completely new! My inspiration comes from all those beautiful DIY painted Moroccan lanterns on Pinterest. But since they’ve already been done, I had to mix it up a bit. Here’s what I came up with, hope you like it!

Supplies:

– Litex 3″ Neck Clear Chimney Glass

– LED battery-operated Umbrella light (I couldn’t find these on the Lowe’s web site, but they are in the umbrella area and run about $8 each.

– Paint

– Decoupage medium

– Plastic cups, stirrer

– Wire rack

– Puffy Paint

First, squirt some decoupage medium in a small plastic cup. Next, add a TINY drop of paint (you can also use fabric dye or even food coloring) and stir well.

Pour it generously around the opening. Mix another batch and pour from the bottom. For a two-tone look, mix up a complimentary color and pour it over the open areas. Roll it around so the paint covers as much of the open areas as possible. You want only a THIN coat of paint so it will dry quickly. in that case, I went out back and shook the lamp hard over and over to shake off the excess. Set the lamp on a wire rack so it can dry. You want for the paint to look thin and like stained glass.

Here is the green one. It really wasn’t quite dry yet, but I figured since I wouldn’t be touching the inside, I went ahead and added puffy paint designs in black. You could also use gold if you wanted! Once you have it all decorated, set it back outside to dry.

Here is the orange and pink lamp. See how it is starting to dry clear?

Using house paint will give a bit more of an opaque look, but if you use dye or food coloring, it will look more like stained glass. You could even use stained glass paint too!

I used clear plastic plates from the dollar store to set on top of the umbrella lights, then I set the chimney lamp on top. Wow, don’t they look stunning? The lights are so bright!