Bottle Lamps

I thought I would start a series based on one of my most unique artworks, my bottle lamps.  I recently sold one of my favorites, and now the new owner is asking for a duplicate.  I am also thinking about making a nightlight for my son's room, so I thought that I would share my process of preparing a bottle for each of the lamp types on which I will be working.

But first, you should probably know where the idea for these lamps comes from, and also get a sample of what they look like.  I first thought of making a wine bottle light after a trip to the winery with some friends.  This particular winery has the prettiest blue bottles, and one of our friends asked me what I could do with it.  So I started to wonder, what exactly could I do with one of these bottles?  I thought it would be interesting to turn them into more of a lampshade so that you could replace them as you wanted instead of being stuck forever with one particular bottle or image.  From this idea, I designed my own style of wine bottle lamps.  Here are some samples.




Butterfly Coi.  My very first lamp.  This was given as a gift to my mother-in-law.  It is based on a fish I saw on a trip to Las Vegas. This is a clear bottle that has been completely painted.  My first base design had a light bulb sticking up into the bottle. 

Tulips. Based on my favorite flowers to draw. This is my second base design.  I moved to a battery operated puck light that the bottle can sit on.  It makes cutting the bottom of the bottle unnecessary.

This bottle was a gift for my Grandma who loves Cardinals.

Celtic Knots.  This came from my love of Celtic knot artwork.  My husband's family has a very strong Irish connection, so I designed this bottle with them in mind.

 
Coral Reef.  Probably my most detailed work. It took me over 30 hours to get this one right, and then the bottle developed a crack.  I was so upset!











 The peacock. This is the one I need to duplicate. It was one of my first ideas even though it was one of my later bottles. It is still my favorite.

Sunflowers.  This was a special order from a family member.  Her kitchen is decorated in sunflowers, so I made a lamp to match.  This one was photographed without its base.













These are just some of the ones that I have done.  There are a few more on my Etsy site, which you can get to by clicking on my logo at the top of the page.  Now you see what they can look like.  Next time, I'll start showing you how to prepare the bottles to make them.  Stay tuned.... 

Jaundice

So today's topic is something that I have been wanting to share for a while, since I know the product that helped us is not widely known or used.  We had a few rough patches when my son was born.  First of all, he had a broken clavicle, which turned out to not be that big of a deal.  They started by keeping the sleeve of his shirt pinned down so he couldn't move his arm, but that didn't last for long.  It set very quickly and healed without much intervention from us, and now there is very little evidence that anything was wrong.

The second problem we faced was that he developed jaundice the night before we were to be discharged.  He had been in the room with me all of the previous day, so by the time the nurses caught it, his levels were already higher than they would like.  He was immediately put on a bilibed. 

Now for those who don't know what a bilibed is, it is a flat bed of UV lights that helps destroy the billiruben in a baby's blood since their body isn't capable of keeping up with it yet. To get an idea of what this looks like, see this link.  We were told to leave him in the bed as much as possible and to only take him out to feed him.  For any new mother, this is hard.  All you want to do in those first few days is cuddle your baby as much as possible, but for his health, I was willing to go along with it.

We had someone come in to arrange sending a bed home with us, and we had to set up a nurse to come to the house to take his blood since the doctor's office would not be open on Sunday.  We were supposed to be discharged at 11, but we had to wait for the bilibed to be delivered.  It didn't get there until 5.  On top of that, my son decided to have a cluster feeding day, which meant that he literally ate all day trying to stimulate my milk to come in, and that made putting him in the bed difficult.  I think he only spent a half hour in the thing while we were at the hospital.  Once we got home we set up the bed, but again, my son was wanting to constantly eat.  By his doctor's appointment the next morning, he had spent two hours total in the bed, and we were trying to figure out a way I could feed him while he was in it. They took his blood at the appointment only to discover his levels had gone up again.

Then our doctor gave us the best news.  It turns out there is another device that works the same as the bilibed, but is much smaller.  It is called the BiliBee and is the size of an i pad. It has a rechargeable battery pack, and it was small enough that we could slide it into his onsie.  To see this device, click this link.  Suddenly, I was able to feed him and hold him all I wanted without worrying about whether he was getting enough time in the bed.  The battery would last several hours, however I was usually sitting next to an outlet so we could leave it charging.  The cord could get in the way sometimes, but it was an improvement from our previous arrangement. We had the BiliBee on him constantly that night, and he never seemed to notice it.  He ate and slept without any disruption, and I was able to continue my bonding with him. On top of that, my milk finally came in. We couldn't have been happier.

The results were quickly noticeable.  By the next day, his skin looked much less yellow.  We had a nurse stop by the house to observe him and to take more blood for testing.  She had never seen the BiliBee before.  She agreed that it seemed like a much better device than the bed.  We got a call later in the day to tell us his levels  had started to go back down. By our Monday morning appointment, he was doing so well that the doctor didn't even take blood.  We returned the BiliBee, and my son has been fine ever since.

I want to tell this story because I would like other parents to know what options are available.  Our doctor only had the BiliBee because a representative had given the office one as a free trial.  We don't know if the company that delivered our original bed had the BiliBee as an option, but I wish I had asked what was available.  For us, this was such an improvement from the BiliBed that I would like it to be the first option available to all families.  It is so hard for new mothers to put their babies down, even when it is for their own good.  With this other device, you don't have to lose any of the bonding time with your baby. I wanted to tell any of my readers about it in case they ever find themselves in this situation, and hopefully as the device gets to be more widely known, it will be the first option available to parents instead of a lucky break.  Thanks for reading!

Introduction

I am brand new to this blogging thing, so I think I'll start by introducing myself and explaining why I want to start this blog. My name is Nikki Davis. I am a stay-at-home mom who loves to create. My road to arts and crafts has been a long one.  My grandmother started me sewing from the time I was 5.  I learned how to needlepoint and cross stitch from her.  Until college, this was the extent of my crafting.  I went to school hoping to one day be a computer animator.  Unfortunately, I chose both the wrong school and the wrong major to achieve this.  I don't regret anything though, since I love my life, but this is how I eventually came to major in art with an emphasis in drawing and printmaking.

Skip forward many years, and I now find myself loving anything crafty.  I am pretty good with a paint brush, which tends to be the basis of the  crafts I do now. I have two children, and they are usually the inspiration for my crafts. I also have my own Etsy store, which you can find by clicking on my logo on this page.  Since having my last child, I haven't had as much time as I would like for crafts, but I'm hoping that, as he gets older, I can start working again. 

So why do I want to start a blog?  I know that when I want to learn how to do a new project I always look to the web.  Most of the time, I find tutorials on someone else's blog. The same goes for some of my parenting questions. I have started to feel like maybe I should start giving  back and share some of my own knowledge and experiences to help other people.  I know that I have given friends advice before on projects and i would like to keep a written record of them for future reference. I also wanted a place to promote my work. 

My content is going to be a combination of parenting stories, craft tutorials, my personal artwork and the stories or processes behind them, and anything else that may come up that may be of interest to anyone.  I hope you will join me on this journey!