Vintage Thermos Lamp

So one of the things I do to keep my toddler in togs is buying random things at thrift stores, yard sales, etc. and selling them.  I seek out the retro, the bizarre and the interesting.  On my latest venture out into the world of hillbilly thrift stores I found an old Thermos from 1971 with a really cool design on it.

Of course, step one of selling the things I find is figuring out how much they are worth so I did a search for vintage thermos and immediately found a bunch of LAMPS!  Yep, apparently people make lamps out of old thermoses, which is not really a surprise since I've been making lamps out of all kinds of random items lately.

• crafty tip, in general, there is no need to buy a "lamp kit" at your local hardware store if you want to make a lamp since you can usually find used lamps for about $1 at your local thrift store and voila, you have a lamp kit!  Lamp kits are usually between $7 and $11 so you'll save some bucks if you like to make lamps!

So...instead of selling the Thermos "as is", I figured I would try my hand at making a lamp.  A word of caution, however, most older quality Thermos products have glass liners so eliminate the surprise factor if you are drilling through the plastic layer by using a punch instead, it's still a real pain to get the glass out though.

Not posting step by step instructions yet...since this was my first attempt and, while I think it turned out beautifully, I know I'll be simplifying the process before too long!

So I had an old lamp that I bought for $1, paid $1 for the thermos and $1 for the lampshade...total cost for this super cool retro lamp was $3!