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Tiffany-Style Table Lamp
Practice Bakes Perfect Challenge #30

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Well, I didn’t think I would finish it in time, as I had not one, but two accidents happening with this! But I was able to fix them, with a couple of “scar” sites, and thankfully they’re not showing too badly 😃:

It’s a functioning table lamp, but - oh my! - was it hard to take pictures of a light source! The shade diameter is 20cm or 8 inches and it’s made up of 64 trapezoid tiles (4 “rings” à 16 tiles each), two lampshade supports, and a hollow base through which I pulled a short string of LED lights wound around a twisted copper wire. Here a few more pics of the finished lamp and progression pics below:

00lamp_sonja_galmad_1

IMG_20180930_062042IMG_20180930_063509

A mock-up with paper:

01paper_mock-up

And a mock-up with royal icing, because I was afraid that the thickness of it and isomalt might throw me a curve ball. It turned out alright, though 😊:

02RI_mock-up

Checking how the pattern would look assembled:

03checking_pattern

The piped tiles… piping and filling them on glass would assure that they came out totally flat. I often stroll through thrift stores to get ideas, and found these round plates. They have little nonskid plastic feet on them. Don’t know what they’re used for, but are totally ideal to place on a turntable, and made piping and filling much easier. Everything had to be as exact as possible to fit together:

04piped_tiles

Filled with royal icing:

05tiles_RI_filled

Filling with isomalt:

06filling_with_isomalt

All 64 tiles filled with royal icing and isomalt:

07tiles_filled_with_isomalt

Checking how they would look when assembled:

08fitting

The assembling of it all gave me some headache. The mock-up with flexible paper was easy, but with rigid tiles like this? They all had to be in their final position before I could start with the glueing process. Another paper form had to be made, and it had to be just the right size, taking the thickness into account. I made 4 sizes until all tiles of the first top ring were laying there all tightly snuggled up together 😊. But then when I glued the tiles, my needle got stuck on one and I pulled some up again, haha! One of the tiles in the first ring sank in a little and I couldn’t change that, as I had already too much isomalt holding them together, and I wasn’t going to redo them all. But I was able to correct it with the second ring. So this makes actually three accidents :

09fitting_in_paper_form

Glueing the second ring… Even though they were snug, I had to adjust the paper form sizes for each ring:

10fitting_in_paper_form2

Fully assembled lampshade from the inside...:

12finished_inside

… and the outside. There are some gaps, but nothing that a little royal icing couldn’t fix 😊:

13so far so good

The first mishap: I startled, when the doorbell rang, and let the small shade support, that I was trying to fit, fall into it. It only affected one tile, though, which I had to carefully break out of its surrounding, tiny piece by piece, and fit a new one into it. This was a tough one, and robbed me of much time:

14yikes

Here I was in the process of reinforcing the tiles with an additional layer of isomalt, so they wouldn’t break that easily, haha! Well, fate had it that I burnt myself with Isomalt and my jerking motion caused me to hit the shade. Two tiles of the last ring broke out. It took me quite some time to fix this, too, but at least she’s quite whole again now 😊:

15yikes_again

This is the hollow lamp base. I just mixed together some icing from the two mandalas that I had leftover in the freezer. It made a dirty color mix, but it would be covered with white RI on the outside anyway:

16lamp_base_RI_sculpted

You might notice that the foot now is thicker. That’s because I added an additional doughnut cookie at the bottom leaving a small gap where the spread wires of the LED light would be ankored in. There’s also a small narrow piece cut out in it for the wire to make it through to the outside. Sorry I forgot to take pics of that:

17lamp_base_RI

Well, what a misfit!!! When I had turned the lamp off, the colors fit fairly well with the pink in the shade, but the white light made the one in the shade much colder. It's so hard to match royal icing and isomalt colors to begin with, but with the added light... I tried whether wrapping a yellow foil around the light to make it warm would help, but yikes!!! I wanted to do so much more to the base, but I gave up on it, and there was not enough time left to do a new one all together. So the only way out of this debacle at this time, was to paint it black. It’s better, but I’m considering to make a new one later on:

18pink_base_yikes

This is the larger shade support cookie, baked extra long to make it hard:

19lampshade_support_cookie

And this is the “light bulb” 😊:

20lamp_light

Here you can see the cable exiting the lamp and cracks in the two larger tiles right above that were broken out:

cable

Attachments

Images (24)
  • 00lamp_sonja_galmad_1
  • 01paper_mock-up
  • 02RI_mock-up
  • 03checking_pattern
  • 04piped_tiles
  • 05tiles_RI_filled
  • 06filling_with_isomalt
  • 07tiles_filled_with_isomalt
  • 08fitting
  • 09fitting_in_paper_form
  • 10fitting_in_paper_form2
  • 11checking
  • 12finished_inside
  • 13so far so good
  • 14yikes
  • 15yikes_again
  • 16lamp_base_RI_sculpted
  • 17lamp_base_RI
  • 18pink_base_yikes
  • 19lampshade_support_cookie
  • 20lamp_light
  • cable
  • IMG_20180930_062042
  • IMG_20180930_063509
Last edited by iSugarfy (aka swissophie)

WOW and WOW!!! @iSugarfy (aka swissophie), Sonja I never thought it possible that you could outdo yourself with the isomalt projects you've created but THIS is completely unbelieveable and way over the top . The details in this lamp are beyond amazing. Even after reading your progression (and thank you so much for the explanation and pics ) I'm still in awe about the time and patience it must have taken to accomplish designing and creating this lamp in isomalt and RI!! You've taken this medium to a place I never imagined possible...only you, dear Sonja ❤️❤️❤️. BTW, can you estimate how long it took you to make this lamp?

LOVE IT!!!!

Cookies Fantastique by Carol posted:

WOW and WOW!!! @iSugarfy (aka swissophie), Sonja I never thought it possible that you could outdo yourself with the isomalt projects you've created but THIS is completely unbelieveable and way over the top . The details in this lamp are beyond amazing. Even after reading your progression (and thank you so much for the explanation and pics ) I'm still in awe about the time and patience it must have taken to accomplish designing and creating this lamp in isomalt and RI!! You've taken this medium to a place I never imagined possible...only you, dear Sonja ❤️❤️❤️. BTW, can you estimate how long it took you to make this lamp?

LOVE IT!!!!

Your comment makes my day, and it's been a tough one, haha! Thank you so much, dear Carol @Cookies Fantastique ❤️❤️❤❤️!!! I so enjoyed doing all the piping and filling. The only real patience that I needed was when I broke and had to fix it, and then of course for taking the pictures, which is the part I don't like to do at all, because I'm just no good at it.

The piping and filling alone took me 10 days! I went really slowly, because it had to be so exact. Add the design, the base and assembling it, it was about 4 weeks I was at it on and off .

Thanks again so much!!!

Ryoko ~Cookie Ave. posted:

I wish I could have this....  I wish I could see how you do ....  I really love this!  This steals my heart away.  

So happy you like it, Ryoko @Ryoko ~Cookie Ave. ! Thank you so much ❤️❤️❤️!!!

 

Last edited by iSugarfy (aka swissophie)
Fabiana posted:

Sonja ahora confirmo mi sospecha de que sos de otro planeta !! Increible tu talento !! Un abrazo y felicitaciones una vez más !!

No, te juro que no soy ajeno, @Fabiana 😂. ¡Pero te agradezco por tus encantadoras palabras, mi querida amiga ❤️❤️❤️!!!

Last edited by iSugarfy (aka swissophie)
Terry H. posted:

This is just..beyond words. My heart is doing little leaps of joy. So delightful. thanks for sharing.

Thank you so much, @Terry H. for your kind comment ❤️!!! Am very happy that you like it !

Insane, Sonja! The final picture is amazing, but it’s the progression pictures that really help you to appreciate the amount of effort that when in to this. So beautiful! So meticulously crafted!

"My other hobbies are rocket science, brain surgery, engineering and creating MENSA tests."  This definitely looks like a 4 week project. Thank you for showing all the steps. Brilliant work as always Sonja