A LAMPSHADE OUT OF CONTAINER GALLONS

“There is money in garbage.”
It is a usual saying with truth attached to it. There a lot of people who became successful because of rubbish. A once good hobby of collecting empty Zest-O tetra packs lead into the launch of the Doy Bags – these are varieties of shopping bags, wallets, tote bags and small or large pencil cases all made from recycled juice packs.
Doy Bags are now were first introduced in the Philippines by a group of women working in a cooperative. In their organization, every single member of the women’s cooperative is involved in the production of the bags and has a say on how things are run.
Doy Bags are now popular and are being exported to Europe. A good sized Shopping Bag is sold at an unbelievable price of £12.99, which is more or less equivalent to five hundred pesos!
There are still plenty of recyclable materials that could be made into a wonderful work of art and can be a good source of extra income. Another example is the lampshade out of empty container gallons.
In making so, we need the following materials:
• Scissors
• Colored glues
• Cutter
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Round-headed fasteners
• Four pieces of empty 1 gallon container (with a round base)
• One piece of ½ gallon container (with a round base)
• Carton
Making a lampshade out of old container gallons is quite easy. You just need to follow these simple steps:

1. Using the cutter, cut the bottom and the middle line of the gallon (the gallon has already a line in it so all you have to do is to follow it). The cut portion of the gallon would give a cylinder shape. Do this in all of the 1 gallon containers.
2. The cylinder shaped gallon is made of plastic so, it will be easy for you to cut it in the middle making it rectangle shaped.
3. With the use of your ruler, measure the size of the square sized plastic in its longer side, and cut it into two equal sizes.
4. Draw a petal shaped figure in your carton, cut it out and trace the cut-out petal-shaped drawing in your plastic gallons. Cut out the figures. All of it should be petal-shaped and the sizes should all be equal.
5. Using your ruler, measure one side of the petal-shaped plastic and divide it into three (put an inch allowance on the top and the bottom of the petal. With the use of your cutter, put a whole in the marked spots just enough to fit the round-headed fastener.
6. Connect the petal-shaped gallons with the use of your round-headed fasteners, do these until you come up with a flower shaped size. The top part of our lamp-shade is completed.
7. Get your ½ gallon container. You will see a line on its middle. With the use of your cutter, follow that line and cut it out. We will need the upper body of the container.
8. From the cut 1 gallon plastic container, get one of the four upper part of the plastic gallon, connect it with the ½ gallon upper size. In joining the two, we must make sure that both mouth openings are where the attachment would take place.
9. Get two bottom part of the container, one from the 1 gallon and the other from the ½ gallon. Connect the ½ gallon bottom to the 1 gallon head.
10. Connect the body to the finished upper part.
11. Use the colored glue to design your masterpiece.
12.
Now, our lampshade out of unused container gallons is completed. This product can be sold from 150-250 pesos depending upon its size.
By recycling, not only could you help save the environment, you could also earn extra money in it if you will just use your creativity.

September 8, 2008