Creepy Halloween Candelabra

I recently picked up this antique floor lamp at a thrift store for $5. Actually it’s charity thrift store, in which the man quoted a price of $3. But I knew it was worth 5, so that’s what I gave him for it.

I spent a little time gutting it, and cleaning it up.

I painted it as part of a marathon spraying party I had with my Finish Max. I spent an afternoon giving everything a coat of gray primer using DIY chalk paint.

I wanted this lamp to hold candles. The original parts weren’t cooperating with me, so I visited my good friends at Keith’s True Value Hardware to find a solution. Bill helped me find some escutcheons in the plumbing department. There are some little brass threads that originally held the candle lamp parts in place. Bill used a really handy “threading” tool to enable these escutcheons to screw right onto the original threads. Easy peasy, & nice and snug. Thanks Bill!

This picture shows the original threads and some washers that Bill helped me pick out.

I gave everything a quick coat of ASCP Old White.

uh oh! The original rust of the lamp is showing through the Old White. What to do?

Change the color to ASCP Graphite! You can see that I’ve already started waxing when I remembered to take a picture.

I used a butter knife to spread just a smidgeon of Miss Mustard Seed wax onto my application pad of the AutoRight Buffer
.

The foam application pad got into the nooks and crannies easily. After the wax dried, I used a clean pad to buff it.

I almost did a happy dance in the store the day I found these beads. I got them at a Deal$ store. EIGHT of them for the great price of $1. I have to tell ya I bought more than one set. I painted them with some Krylon Black Spray paint by using this 2×2 to hold them.

On a recent trip to Wal-mart to get some more Krylon, I found some inexpensive LED candles to use instead of real ones.

I used all 8 strands of beads.

ohhhhh scary skull! This guy was part of the Krylon Mystery Box.

I used my drill to put a hole in the bottom of the skull and both eyes.

The skull fits right over the candle in the middle portion of the lamp, allowing the “flame” to show through the EYES!

I love how the candelabra turned out—it’s great for Halloween, but could be used on a patio anytime.

If you missed the other projects, you can check them out in my post Halloween Mantel.

gail