Ryan McFarland

This little project is sort of nameless right now because i don’t quite know where it will end. I sort of want these to end up as lamp shades. I picked up two "stained glass" coloring books at - you’ll never guess… the Salvation Army. They were not colored in and cost me fifty cents each. As you can see, the paper is sort of waxy - allowing light to shine through. You’re supposed to color them in with crayons or markers and then hang in a window. But i like the designs plain.

I decided to make plexiglass boxes to attach the pages to. I had scrap acrylic kicking around from another project that was almost the right size. I took care to cut two pieces the right size for the page and then two that were a quarter inch smaller in width so that i didn’t end up with blank space at the corners. If you use 1/8 inch plexiglass then you could just cut all four pieces 1/8 shorter and just lap them. I ended up with the wider sides opposite each other and the thinner sides between the wider ones. I used the metric system when i measured though. I wanted the accuracy only millimeters could provide.

I tested superglue but wasn’t happy with it. I then used a new adhesive that i’m pretty excited about. I can’t tell you the name of it because i’m pretty far from it right now. Just support the adhesives industry and buy a basket full of different types and see what kinds of results you get. I wanted to be precise in my gluing so i used my quick square and a clip to make sure i ended up with a right angle.

I repeated that process and then glued the two halves together. I kept cutting plexiglass because each book had eight pages - enough for two lampshades (or whatever) each.

I then put a tiny (and i mean small) dot of superglue on the outer edge of the plexiglass and glued the pages (after pulling the staples from the book) to the sides. I should have experimented with the insect book first since i’m not as fond of it as i am of the leaves. I ended up having some glue show through the translucent part of the page. A little dab’l'do’ya. (That’s what my elementary art teacher always said.) Here’s what the box looks like with the pages on and two small candles inside. They may just end up softening the light of candles instead of light bulbs.

If you want some of these books you can pick them up pretty cheap. In fact, there is a wide assortment of the books at Amazon.com and most are just $1.50 new.