If you have purchased my ebook and are on the exclusive Grocery Shrink email group, you heard me talking about making a curly IQ lamp months and months ago. I finally did it and have pictures! 

It all started when I was looking for hanging lamps on ebay and found pictures of IQ lamps in a wedding banquet hall.  I thought it was gorgeous and wanted to replicate the look at home, but didn't like the price.  I did a little search and found this site: http://0pointer.de/blog/iqlamp-stencil.html and used their stencil.  I did a lot of experimenting with materials and although 110 lb cardstock was handy and I could print the stencil right on it for cutting out, it was just to stiff to put together without tearing.  110 lb vellum had enough flexibility to do the job and was translucent for a better light effect.  I bought large 110 lb vellum sheets ($3.50 each) from Hobby Lobby in their drafting materials department.  It took 2 sheets to make 1 lamp (15 pieces out of each sheet.)  I used a pencil to the stencil on the sheets just so to be able to fit 15 pieces on one sheet, and cut them out with scissors.  A small hole punch made the perfect corner.  This picture shows the exact layout of the sheets, but it is hard to see since it is a pencil tracing.  If you try hard you can make it out. The most important thing is that both "shoudlers" of the piece are lined up with the left side of the vellum.

 
I bought the light cord kit from Ikea to complete the lamp and was able to insert it before hooking the last piece in place and avoid cutting a hole in one of the pieces.

This lamp was super tricky to put together, and Youtube videos were really helpful.  This one was my favorite even though my Spanish isn't very good:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-HZbigZtoQ  It shows the lamp with 2 different colors so you can really see how the pieces fit together.  I also liked the instructions from the original IQ lamp site:  http://www.sadiethepilot.com/iqweb/iqhowto.htm  The biggest difficulty I had was the vellum was a little slick and it wanted to fall apart on me.  I used glue dots (found in scrapbooking departments) to hold ornery pieces together.  They worked great because they were easy to remove if I accidentally put one in a bad spot and were hardly noticeable in the finished product, unlike tape.

I plan to make 2 more lamps for my living room and we are dreaming of other places in the house they would look fabulous.  It will be awhile though.  Cutting out 30 pieces is a little overwhelming and putting it together is worse–grin.  If I would just do them all at once, I'm sure I could get in a groove and it wouldn't be so bad.