Varient Themes on the Light Bulb Vase

[flowersinweeds.livejournal.com]

I loved the light bulb vase idea in the FAQ and made two the other day. In the process, I only came across one question, but had several ideas.

The inside of the metal part of the light bulbs is very corroded/rusty/grimy. So my question is, if any of you guys had found and easy way to clean this?

My ideas are as follows (with the two vases I made "modeling"):

1. Salt and Pepper Shakers
Okay, so the thing that sent me off on tangent uses was when I was cleaning out the white powder with salt, but only after unsuccessfully cleaning it all with water. Naturally some salt stuck to the wet sides and I thought, "what a cute salt and pepper shaker these would make!" I unscrewed the top to the salt shaker on the counter and tried screwing it onto the light bulb, and it fit! Now the only problem with this idea is getting the corroded mess off of the metal part so that these salt and pepper shakers are sanitary.




2. Jars
After making the connection that light bulbs screw into their sockets so salt and pepper shaker tops screw onto the light bulbs, I wondered what other lids fit on light bulbs and I found that your average soda bottle cap works well. Including Jones Soda bottle caps! (I also had read in the FAQ earlier a post about uses for them where you still get to read the fortune) The Jones caps look super cute too because they are silver.




3. Don't have salt and pepper shaker caps that fit? Put holes in a bottle cap.


4. Hanging vases
Okay, when searching my house for burned out bulbs I also found two of the small "fancy" ones used in chandelier lamps. So I tried taking those apart, and it was a bit harder because the bottom part you remove is so small. In my attempts, I got the black part off, but in trying to break the inner layer of glass (difficult because the opening is so small), I think that it is attached to the glass of the bulb itself so the silver metal part for screwing it into the socket also came off leaving me with a broken glass edge. The edges on my two bulbs are not sharp enough to cut though, so I just left them that way. You could probably glue the silver part back on if you wanted to or hide the edges in some other way. I, however, thought it looked pretty.


After that I found so floral wire wrapped in embroidery thread and used that to wrap around the outside of the bulb to form a holder. I started at the tip of the bulb and wrapped it up to the broken glass edge. I wrapped one end of the wire around the opening and tucked it under itself to hide the end and the other end I wrapped to the back of the bulb and then up into a swirl so it can hang on a nail.



I want to get some thick silver wire to make a holder out of for my other bulb. Oh, and one of the bulbs, when it burned out, the inside of the glass turned back which gives it a cool effect.