Dear Studio 54 – your legend pales in my shadow.
My entire approach to home décor, (and life in general) is: how can I make this shinier?
I’m like Liberace. But without a piano. Also, I don’t like loafers.
I walk around shouting—BORING! Give me more rhinestones! Bring me sequins!
Where are my leisure suits???
So considering that, I’m not sure why it took me so long to break out the disco balls for Halloween.
Why did I not make a disco light fixture before now?
What is wrong with me?
A while ago, Paul brought home this sad, antique brass chandelier he got out of the neighborhood trash… It’s spray painted black, has all the crystals stripped off, and is missing one of the light sockets.
I was not enthusiastic.
Until I was out in the garage for the Halloween decorations and realized: Whoa… what that needs is some disco balls.
And? Since I’m me? I have ALL the disco balls anyone could possibly need to make a disco chandelier without leaving their house.
My foresight is impressive, no?
I hot-glue-gunned disco balls to where the light bulbs should go.
I did try to keep the glue out of the socket. Just incase at some point Paul takes leave of his senses and thinks he has nothing better to do than refinish it.
I hung the other mirror balls using Christmas hooks in the holes where the chandelier’s crystals used to be attached.
Obviously if you’re going to make your own, you could use something other than disco balls. I don’t know why you would, but maybe you feel really strongly about mini pumpkins. Or tiny flashing skulls.
Or actual Christmas ornaments, if you’re planning ahead to December.
As a light source, I’m using a string of tiny, LED battery-powered lights– also out of my Christmas supply. I’ve seen them called rice lights. Or fairy lights. But what you actually want are micro led lights.
Rice or fairy lights have an actual visible socket, but the micro lights are incredibly small, and incorporated into the cord. The ones I got are on a slim wire that you can mold and shape. I just draped them like garland from one arm to the other.
Mine have a timer in the battery-pack so you can set them to come on and off automatically. I got them last Christmas and am happy with them… One set of batteries lasted the whole season.
I definitely need more light surrounding the mirror balls I glued in the chandelier sockets… once it’s dark, you really only notice the largest disco ball.
But? For completing an entire project from start to finish, using only what I already had, and not leaving my house for supplies, I’m pretty pleased.
Obviously, my chandelier will go back up with my Christmas porch decorations.
Hopefully by then, I will think of a better way to get more light where I want it. I had tried propping battery-powered tea lights in the cups of the candelabra arms… which did look nice—the votives give off a surprising amount of light, but I want something I can set to come on automatically, not something I have to remember to go out and turn on every night.
Also for next year, I need to figure out a light source for my disco skull’s eyes. It would be so much better if they were sparkly at night.
November 28, 2012 @ 1:22 pm
Wow, that was SOOOO impressive! I am really hanging onto the dangling-lit-up skulls on the chandelier idea for next Hallowe’en.
November 28, 2012 @ 3:41 pm
Thanks! I got it back out for Christmas decorating, but ended up thinking the black was just too shabby… I briefly thought about spray-painting it gold, but realized another decorating project would topple my already precarious to-do list.
November 28, 2012 @ 3:42 pm
Ha, perhaps you need two chandeliers, one for Christmas and one for Hallowe’en.
It’s a great time of year for crafty/creative people to drive themselves right out of their minds, isn’t it?
November 28, 2012 @ 4:10 pm
LOL… yes, and yes.
I DID think maybe I should get another one. Plus, I think the chandelier could handle an upgrade to larger mirror balls… but I REALLY don’t need another project.
November 28, 2012 @ 4:13 pm
That is what I always say right before I get another project 🙂
May 18, 2013 @ 10:15 am
I can’t even read the rest of this post before I say: OH-NO-YOU-DIDN’T just make a chandelier with disco balls instead of light bulbs!!!!!
May 18, 2013 @ 6:23 pm
I have HUGE plans to revamp the chandelier. I did a totally half-assed job, and now see how I can make it FAR MORE ELABORATE.
I don’t know why I was so reserved to begin with.
May 18, 2013 @ 10:58 am
More disco balls! I can not stop reading!
July 7, 2013 @ 11:29 am
Love it! Disco balls should happen in daily life not just holidays though. So sad to keep them stifled in a box in the garage. Poor disco balls. But to add more bling to the beautiful creation, what about a stick-on LED light that shines down on it or shines up on it from below in a mason jar? I used them for a custom-built kid play kitchen I made my son so his oven and fridge would light up. http://t.co/6EFFidbo9A
July 30, 2013 @ 12:43 pm
I was thinking about your problem getting more light where you want it, and I might have a solution, if they still sell them. About 5 years ago, while looking for a replacement for the kitchen ceiling light, my bored children started roaming the lighting aisles at Lowe’s. Mid-kid found a mini spot light. It’s powerful. Its on-off switch is a pressure switch on the bottom of the stand, so when it’s on its base, it is ON, and if you want it off, you just flip it on its side. Could be put on a timer so that you don’t have to manually flip the lamp. I checked online, and Lowe’s no longer seems to carry them (though their site’s search engine isn’t exactly intuitive). Walmart does carry a lamp that looks exactly like what my daughter chose, though at 3 times the price (about $30), and Amazon.com carries the same brand as Walmart at half the price. Besides its lack of availability now, the one con is that it gets hot. Not burn-the-house-down hot, but touch the barrel once and you will remember not to touch it again.
Just a thought.
Your Hallowe’en porch is classy and creepy all at the same time, and I love it.
December 30, 2013 @ 11:33 am
How I missed your Halloween chandelier I don’t know, but girl…..I LOVE it. I. want. one. of. my. own!!! Along with at least 200 mirrored disco balls. I’ve tried so hard to eliminate the vast tubs of Christmas crap from the last 30+ years (red and green—gone; I’m on to orange/teal/aubergine/lime), but somehow more stuff creeps in. I gave my daughter-in-law lots of my OLD decorations so now I can start new. Thrift stores here I come looking for a dowdy chandelier that I can transform into a sparkle extravaganza of mirrored beauty! A million thanks for keeping me so entertained.
August 25, 2015 @ 5:45 pm
I wonder if this came out of my parent’s trash. That piece is very familiar and I think a few houses in the area might have had something similar. I love the decorations and remember trick-or-treating on your porch as a child.
September 18, 2016 @ 7:36 pm
Yassssss disco balls!!!!!!!
December 26, 2020 @ 3:44 pm
I actually have those medium and small size disco balls (since my husband and I are refugees from the 1970s), and are looking on multiple sites for a bronze chandelier for the condo our son is living in. (But couldn’t talk him into it by the time the free ones came and went.) Our disco balls are going on our tree, as usual every year, but we only have 100 ornaments, not counting boring glass balls (which go in our free-trade wire Peace basket instead of mini-pumpkins between Halloween and Christmas). Nothing ever goes to waste, unless the males in the family throw it out! Great job on your house! We’re spending 5 mos. renovating just half a condo bathroom, so you’re cheering me up with your crazy adventures, and I’m “Reading From Beginning” but went off on a tangent here. Keep blogging, and enjoying renovating. Happy Hanukkah, Christmas, and Boxing Day, from Canadians in Florida!