Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Found ~ Girly Lampshade and My Inner Craftinista

If you know me, then you know I'm a sucker for sentimental things.  And if you know my daughter, then you know she is a big scaredy cat of almost everything.  What do these two things have in common?  A lampshade.  You see, my daughter has this irrational fear of going into her bedroom by herself.  We've talked about it alot trying to determine what exactly is scary about going to her room.  So this past week we decided that maybe it's because she has to walk into her room to the other side to turn on her lamp because we don't have overhead lights in the bedrooms in our house.  Since we have room darkening shades, this means her room is almost always dark and she has to go in there to turn on the light.  But, there is one outlet in her room that is controlled by the lightswitch, so I decided that we would get her another lamp and plug it into that outlet and then she can just turn on the switch and not be scared anymore.  She thought that sounded like a great idea. 

Okay, onto the sentimental me part...  I have a lamp that was mine when I was a little girl, but the lampshade was broken so I decided to use that lamp and just buy a new shade.  No big deal, right?  Well, after going to a few stores I realized that there aren't really a whole lot of cute shades out there that won't cost you an arm and a leg, which would defeat the whole purpose of saving money by using a lamp we already have (did I mention I like to save money too?).  So, my mom and I set out to Old Time Pottery to see if they had anything since they have a ton of lamps.  I found a lamp and shade that cost less than one shade at Target, so I decided to just buy that lamp and modify the shade to make it girly since they didn't really have anything that was made for a little girl's room.  Here's where my craftinista comes in.  Yes, I just made up a word and I like it.  I bought some ribbon to trim the shade with.  Here's what I came up with.


Here is a close up view of the top trim.  All I did was fold the ribbon in half and then tie it around.  I didn't even glue it.  And then I trimmed the ends off after I tied the little bow.  Super easy!
Here is a detail of the bottom trim.  I had a ton of trouble with this because I just wanted it to be flat, but the way the shade is shaped it just wouldn't work.  So I came up with this.  I just folded the ribbon in half and then at every seem in the shade I twisted the ribbon and then glued it on.  I actually think it looks kinda nice, just a little fancy touch.
Just a pic of the lamp with the light on.
Here is a pic of the glue I used.  I also used it for a project I did where I added trim to the edge of my kitchen window valance.  Maybe I'll do a post of that a different time.

Hope this inspires you to "make it work" if I may quote Project Runway.  If you can't find the thing you're looking for then modify it or make it!  Find your inner craftinista.  Could I be more cheesy today?!

1 comment:

  1. Ohhh I love the word craftinista... I have a lampshade in Kyra's room that I spraypainted white but it still needs something. I may have to do something with ribbon and the glue that I have ...

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