Hello Ben,
I think for a while, if I should bother you with my proposal and finally I did it. Currently, I'm working on a similar project (I'm in design phase), but I found on the internet only pieces of information that I had to put them together, so I would like to see how this can be done. Plus, it might be useful and fun for a lot of peoples, especially if they design it as they like. So this is my project proposal:
- to make a desk lamp (from scratch or using scrapped parts) that uses bright (power) LED's; in my project I use 27 while LED's (OVA-1081) bought from element14; LED's can be arranged on a disk, but any shape will do.
- initially I intended to make a capacitor-based power supply (aka “transformer-less” power supply) to provide power to the LED's from house outlet (230V, 50Hz), but the information that I could found to build such a power source were very thin, the risk to electrocute myself very high (or even worse, to fry the electric network of the entire block), so I decided to use a laptop power supply (output 12V, 2A). You can build it as you see fit, I'm hopping for a third idea.
Optionally, additional functionality can be added:
- a potentiometer can be installed to adjust the light intensity, if is desired
- add some intelligence with an Arduino and some sensors, like: turn on/off swiping over a specific area, or automatically turns on when you set at the desk and turns off when you leave the desk and light in the room in under a specific level, etc. For a first version, I can leave without optional points, but it's up to you if you want to add some "personality" to your build 
Thank you for reading my proposal and I hope to see the video soon
Radu
