I have found things to do with clear flexible cutting mats! I have made lamp shades, but there are many other options.

Clear translucent flexible cutting mats are readily available and affordable.  You can apply paint, acrylic medium, art papers, and digital transparencies on this material.  With a little care and planning, the cutting mat can be transformed into a great lamp shade, and the design will glow when lit. If you want to feature a design, photo, or artwork, use translucent paint or print to a transparency.  Or apply opaque papers or paint if you just want to see the artwork when the lamp is unlit.

The lamps above are not new, but I don’t think I have ever featured them in my blog.  It is an interesting functional way to display my work, although it does take some trial and error to get the translucency and color saturation to work.  I wanted to enjoy the designs when the lamp was unlit and when lit, because I am greedy that way :-)!

I applied my art to clear flexible cutting mats to make the shades. The lamp bases came from thrift stores, and are probably bases from broken lava lamps.

I have used this technique to create wall sconce shades that feature photo portraits of community members; these are installed in our community common house.

I was limited by the mat sizes, but 18″x24″ and  20″x30″ mats are available now, which provides me with more options.  I am currently working on a different home improvement project that will also feature my art over flexible cutting board material.  I found larger sizes available from ChopChop Food Service and from Norpro.

This is a really handy material:  stiff but flexible and easy to cut.  It is very durable, the sconce shades have been in place for about 10 years.

It was a surprise to me that I did not find anything when I Googled “things to do with flexible cutting mats” or “things to do with flexible cutting boards”! Nothing on YouTube either.  Someone else must have found a creative use for these affordable & readily available mats.