I'd grown tired of the brass-and-glass lamp over our kitchen table. It was the first thing I saw upon coming into our house and it wasn't my style at all, so I started searching the internet and lamp shops for something that was. Sadly, the only lamps that I found interesting were considered "art" and were priced to show it!

I hit the library in search of lamp-making ideas and found the book called Making Great Lamps: 50 Illuminating Projects, Techniques & Ideas. It gave me so many ideas that I began to look for materials to start my lamp. Soon, a black basket with a wooden base jumped out at me as the perfect thing! I headed down to the hardware store with it in search of a helpful employee. Luckily, there was an extremely patient gentleman who was willing to help me instead of stocking the shelves. After about an hour of discussing options for wiring up this basket and locating the perfect washers, nuts, wires, and fixture, I was ready.

You will need these items:

• basket with a wooden base
• porcelain socket fixture
• thin steel cable - two equal pieces that are each a little longer than the distance you want your lamp to hang from the ceiling (have the hardware store cut these for you)
• four steel cable crimps - tiny tubes that you can crimp on the end of the cable, since you can't knot it
• two bolts long enough to go through the fixture holes and the basket base
• two "acorn nuts", which are just decorative nuts that will fit on the bolts
• lamp cord
• small metal tube, which will protect and dress up the cord going through the basket bottom
• a lighting fixture plate for your ceiling
• washers of various sizes, for decoration
• rice paper, to cover the inside of the basket

1. The porcelain socket fixture has four holes. We'll use the two tiny ones for the support cables and the two larger ones for the bolts. Drill five holes in the wooden basket base for the socket fixture. You'll need one hole the size of the silver tube that goes over the lamp cord in the center. Then drill two holes for the bolts that go through the fixture and the base. Finally, drill two small holes in the base for the supporting cable wires at the locations of the small fixture holes.
2. Drill a variety of holes in the base for ventilation. You will dress up these holes by gluing the washers on, so size them accordingly.
3. Glue the rice paper to the inside sides of the basket using spray adhesive or plain glue. Don't get it too wet, or the paint from the basket may run onto your paper. You may want to include decorative leaves or different colors of paper.
4. Put the silver tube in the center hole and pass the lamp cord through it. Connect the wires to the screws on the fixture inside the basket.
5. With pliers, squeeze a crimp tube on one end of each piece of cable. Now run each piece through a small side hole on the fixture and then through the base of the basket. The crimp tubes should now be against the socket fixture.
6. Pull out the slack in the cord and the cables and attach the fixture to the base with the two bolts, using the acorn nuts on the outside of the basket.
7. Drill two small side holes in your ceiling fixture plate for the support cables.
8. Run the support cables through the ceiling fixture plate. Cut and crimp at a length that will place your lamp the distance you want from the ceiling.
9. Run the cord through the ceiling fixture plate and install.

There's probably a lot of things that could cause your fixture to be a safety hazard. If you're unfamiliar with how to wire things up, get help so that you don't burn down your house because of a homemade lamp! Ours has been working fine for over a year with a large decorative 100W bulb. I watched it carefully the first few days to see how hot the liner paper would get, but it just got warm, not hot. Just be careful and do this one at your own risk - I don't want anyone to get hurt because of a craft project.