What can I make from a broken crystal chandelier?
Mobiles (or used to accent several mobiles made with other items) can be made with these using fishing line and 14 gauge wire. You’ll want some pliers to shape, bend, and curl the metal to hold the hanging drops. You can use this method to make a new chandelier, a window suncatcher mobile, or as art. Alternately, pile them (perhaps with colorful marbles) into a clear glass vase and put in a window. The facets will be lovely, and throw light around. If you have the small ones, you can use them as evenly-spaced lampshade dangles (use a needle and your fishing line to attach them – loop the fishing line around the bottom metal ring/holder at the bottom of the lamp shade. If you get 20+ gauge wire (take a crystal with you when buying the wire), you can turn the crystals into creatures or plants – using the wire to link pieces together, and then heavier wire to create bodies and legs. Butterflies, dragonflies, daisies, snarling beasts… If you use them in a mosaic, plan to use a heavier ad
Here is a project of a new chandelier made from an old chandelier that shows some of the techniques (although it’s not quite what I was thinking of): Here is a cool Wire Doodle that uses some of the techniques (the bending and twisting, although I hadn’t envisioned the looping) You can see where you could use the same technique and incorporate crystals. These wire and glass mobiles use a classic formation of balanced bars from which drops hang at different levels. Because your materials would be different, it’d look different, but you can a sense of construction.
