My sister Abby prompted me to be crafty over the Christmas Holidays, a word that would rarely describe me quite frankly. My dad had remarked to me that I had too many antlers laying around his house and that I should figure out something to do with them other than leave them in a big pile.
That’s where my sister came in because she also wanted me to get rid of a chewed beaver stick that is occasionally rolling off dresser tops and acting as dangerously as a roller pin in the dark to pedestrians.
Although the job took about 2 hours to run back and forth between the house for suggestions from Abby and the garage to use the table saw, drill, and caulking gun, this was the end result.
Two medium size shed antlers – one serving as the base to stabilize the lamp and the other is purely decorative. The beaver stick was sawed off at both ends to make even sides for the upright stick; however, the top was saved to cap off the lamp above the shade. Rooted around in the attic for lamp shades that my mom had stored.
Use the table saw to plane a groove wide enough to staple the wire into the back of the wood. Pre-drill the antlers with a bit before screwing to the wood. Trust me…antlers will splinter! Use a bigger drill bit to drill out the top end of the beaver stick so the lamp hardware will seat firmly and the chewed end will sit on top of the shade.
Like I said, just took some experimenting with different positions of the antlers and slowly upgrading drill bit sizes so that the parts didn’t end up too wobbly.
Now, the shed antler lamp (that will cost you upwards of $125-150 online for genuine antler) sits handsomely in the corner of my newly painted office in my home. Set off with a couple of other items on the table, my homemade shed antler lamp is proudly displayed.
