Try This: Plastic Cup Redux

Enlarge Image Image Gallery This lamp looks stunning as a half-dome, but the audacious crafter with cups to spare could easily turn it into a sphere by adding to the simple pattern, one cup at a time.

Light fantastic 

Next time you throw a party, don’t sweat the disposable plastic cups; recycle them into this deceptively simple, sculptural lamp instead. Stapling drink cups together forms this beautiful hemi-orb that has a muted, milk glass glow. The shape is reminiscent of beehives or bubbles. 

1 This light was made using about 120 plastic drink cups (we used 9-ounce cups, but any size would work). Wash and dry the cups, then staple two cups together side-by-side. Place the stapler deep into each cup, and staple as far back as possible. This holds the back of the cups together and begins forming the curved shape of the fixture.

2 Add a third cup in the "valley" between the first two.

3 Next, put a fourth cup into place and staple it to the cup next to it and to the one below it.

4 & 5 Keep adding cups in an alternating pattern until the two-tiered chain of cups is long enough to bend all the way around, into a large circle, and be stapled to itself. Begin adding the next row of cups. Make sure the rims of the cups in each new row are placed behind the rims of the previous row so a dome begins to take shape. Each new row will require fewer and fewer cups—the last row needs only about 11.