LIGHTEN UP!
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Happy Monday my friends! I hope you all had a relaxing and restful weekend! Or for all you DIYers, home improvers, decorators and designers out there, a productive weekend! Before I share with you a great make over today, I want to give a shout out to my RAMSIGN winner Sally. SALLY...I have not heard back from you and you did not leave an email for me to contact you. You will have until next Saturday to claim your prize, or I will have to draw another name! Thank you
It all started when I found this lovely little light. Well, she is not so little and she's not so light. She measures 33" from top to bottom and is made out of ceramic! I immediately fell in love with her lines. Her style and color, not so much, and I felt the lamp shade was a tad on the big side. Let's face it, it is straight out of the 70's! But I knew I could bring her into the 2000's!
I started by getting rid of the lamp shade. I didn't get rid of it entirely, I kept it for some "future" project. You never know!! I put a coat of primer on the body, the base and the bulb stem thingy. I am sure it has a technical name but I don't know what that is?! I put a plastic bag around the cord and taped it at the base. It already looks better!
I then used Glad Press n' Seal around the top of the lamp, so I could spray paint the bulb stem silver. This stuff worked great. I could get up really close to the edge and not worry about spraying the lamp!
Once the spray paint and primer were dried. I continued to paint the body and base in black, white and grey. I loved the way it transformed instantly!!
The next step was to figure out the lamp shade situation. I found a Self-Adhesive lamp shade online from Hobby Lobby. It measured 4"x11"x7.5". I then found my dream fabric on Etsy. I ordered 1/2 yard! It was the perfect amount. All of the instructions for the lamp shade came with it. It was a no brainer!!
So I began to follow the instructions. I saved the wax paper that was around the lamp shade and traced it over my fabric! As you can see it is not perfectly straight.
I started my fabric at the beginning of the seam of the shade and used my hand to press it smooth and adhere well. Then I glued down the edges using craft glue. I have often seen people use clothes pins to hold down the edges while it dries, but I didn't have clothes pins, so I used what I had on hand. Paper clips!
Once my craft glue dried, I cut the extra fabric out from the inside of the shade to give it a more polished appearance. I then ran a bead of craft glue around the raw edges and smoothed it with my fingers to help seal the fabric and keep it from fraying.
I finished by adding some decorative trim to help tie in the body of the lamp to the shade. Again, I used a bead of craft glue around the shade and slowly pressed it all away around the edges. I made sure to start and stop at the seam of the lamp shade. I also applied a little of craft glue to the beginning and end of the trim to keep it from fraying over time.
I love the way the trim repeats the pattern found in the body of the lamp!
And that was all it took to give this little light a much needed make over!
Where there once once dark, there is now light!
What do you think?
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