With over 100 active dealer booths to explore at Sugar Bear Mall, discovering inspiration for a creative DIY project has never been a problem. We have heard and seen many of our customer’s amazing DIY re-purpose projects, often created from an item which caught their eye while browsing through our dealer booths. Seeing all of these projects gave us an idea… share the creativity and inspire others!

So for our very first DIY blog post, we invited Chandelle, a local DIY’er with an impressive re-purpose project portfolio, to a DIY project challenge. Find two items in Sugar Bear Mall and turn it into a signature home decor piece, similar to items found on sites like houzz.com ( a popular online Interior design shopping site) where re-purposed decor items sell for hundreds to thousands of dollars. Chandelle gladly accepted the challenge, making sure to photograph and document her progress to share with us all. We are excited to feature her project on our website and hope this inspires others to come explore the mall and discover creativity.

Chandelle, walk us through the “Apple Basket Lamp” re-purpose project…

Materials:

• Apple basket
• Ultra Matte Chalky Finish spray paint (your choice of color, otherwise)
• Micro LED string lights (battery powered, remote control is necessary)
• Decorative Trim
• Command Wire Hook
• Swag Hooks
• Glue gun
• Sanding square
• Staple gun

Instructions

1. The first step to creating this adorable and creative bedroom mood light was making sure the basket was free of dust and dirt. I wiped the basket down with a little Mrs. Meyers soap and water. I then placed it in the sun to dry.

2. I spray painted the outside of the basket with Valspar’s Chalky Finish Paint in Ultra Matte. It took me two coats to get the finish I was looking for. You could definitely do a light distress around the basket if you want that sort of look. I was planning on it, but I forgot after I got so excited after buying the perfect little button fringe to go around the base of the basket.

3. Then I grabbed my staple gun and proceeded to staple the LED battery powered string lights to the inside of the basket. I did run into a few issues doing this: the first thing that happened was the staples were going all the way through the basket and the second issue was some spots the staples created a crack. What I did to correct these issues were: I took a pair of needle nose pliers to the staples that came through and I folded them to the basket as close I could, then I sprayed them down with the paint I used on the basket. for the ones that cracked I took them out and discarded them. In the end, I didn’t need as many staples as I had put in to hold in the lights. I used a command wire hook on the inside of the basket, on the top, to attach the battery pack. It was a cheap and clever trick, if id o say so myself.

4. I used white swag hook on the outside top of the basket so when I complete the light it can hang from the ceiling.

5. The last step is the fun part. I finally got to use the decorative strip to go around the rim and center of the light. I found these at JoAnn Fabrics. I used hot glue to attach it to the rim of the basket. I did the same process for the middle decorative strip.

These are very simple DIY projects for a relatively cheap cost, and they make amazing gifts or great additions to your home. I hope you enjoy making these projects as much as I did.