Turn A Cooling Rack And Placemat Into Stylish Hanging Sconces

With a little creativity and ingenuity, it's absolutely amazing what you can do with a $1.25 Cooking Concepts Metal Cooling Rack from Dollar Tree. There are numerous ways you can repurpose a cooling rack, but you might want to take some inspiration from TikToker @redeux_style. Add a woven placemat that you can buy just about anywhere and some remote-controlled puck lights, and you've got the makings of a very stylish hanging sconce.

It's common to find similar sconces from places like Wayfair for $70 or more, but you can make a perfectly acceptable dupe for under $15 (depending on the cost of your chosen placemat, of course). A two-pack of e-Circut Wireless LED Lights with Remote is only $5 at Dollar Tree, but there are other options online that boast additional features. For example, you can pick up these Ezvalo 8-pack Motion Sensor Puck Lights for just $33.98. These battery-operated or rechargeable lights can provide you with many cordless wall lighting ideas to brighten up your home; consider making multiple sconces or using the extras in a bulk pack to light up other spaces. Other things you're going to need include a tube of E6000 glue, some elastic or picture wire, and two small paper plates.

To make your super stylish sconce, the first thing you'll have to do is bend your cooling rack into a semi-circle shape. This shouldn't be that difficult if you have a large foam roller that you can shape it around. If you don't have one of these, you could use a large cooking pot, a metal bucket, or a piece of PVC pipe. The rack should be relatively easy to bend into shape if you have some sort of guide to work with.

Once you have the shape you want, grab the glue and put some on all of the metal rungs so that you can stick the placemat right around the rack. Use clothespins, binder clips, or hair clips to hold the edges in place until the glue dries completely, which could take at least an hour. Take three pieces of elastic or picture wire and tie them from one side to the other at the back of the frame, spacing them fairly evenly. Not only will these allow you to mount the sconce on the wall, but they also offer support for the paper plates you're going to insert. These will be what you mount your puck lights onto using something like double-sided tape or glue. Put one light at the top and one at the bottom. Now all that's left to do is hang your sconce on the wall and turn on the lights. 

Using the same basic concept, you can customize these lights in so many different ways. For starters, you don't have to use a woven placement to cover the frame you've made with the cooling rack. Instead, you could just use a nice piece of fabric that you've cut to size. Even if the fabric isn't particularly see-through, if you position the puck lights correctly, you'll still have light shining through the top and the bottom of the unit. Alternatively, you might have or be able to find a lovely rattan placemat that you can use instead of the woven fabric or jute one.

Another thing you could do is use different colored lights. You can even find color-changing LEDs that would add a whole different dimension to your lighting. This would look quite amazing if you have the sconce hung directly above a piece of artwork or a print that you want to highlight, which is one of the many ways you can decorate with sconces. You can also find dimmable puck light options that can set different moods for your living areas.