DIY Chevron Lamp Shade

 

It’s been awhile since I last posted and I apologize for it. I will blame it on a few things: 1. being busy with garden parties, ( as I still call them, though they are indoors now ) 2. Another little business venture that  my mom and I started. And most of all, 3. being cameraless. Let’s just say someone picked up a good camera, case, and sd card loaded with beautiful shots of the mountains and valleys of Pennsylvania for nothing! ( I hope they also picked up a bad case of sleepless nights, fidgety feet and maybe even a nervous eye tic )

Thankfully, I have this awesome sis who said I can borrow her camera (which is identical to the one I had) anytime I want, so the other day I took a few before shots of a lamp and shade I picked up at a thrift store for a few dollars…

I had already started to spray paint it white before I remembered to take a picture. It was an ugly crème color when I bought it and I used a white satin spray paint to paint it. First I sanded it to get rid of some of the roughness of the fabric.

The lamp base looked like this..

 

After painting the shade, I cut out some zigzags of stretchy black fabric…

I used my trusty glue gun to fasten the zigzags onto the shade. I didn’t have to glue a lot since the fabric I used kind of clung to the shade.

Another method I’ve used to redo shades is with iron on fabric. A tutorial on how to do this can be found here: http://porchswingsnhoneysuckle.blogspot.com/2012/09/simple-quilt-set-tutorial.html

After some gluing and cutting more zigzags, here’s how it turned out…

 

While I was working on the lamp, I thought it might look good in our living room, but I soon saw that it wouldn’t go well with some of the tan and white stripes in there. So,for now, it resides in the studio where it goes pretty good with the white in there.

For the base, I used a paint marker to distress. This is one of my favorite methods to use and I will share a tutorial soon on an old record player cabinet that I redid using this technique.

Another little project that I did this week…

 

I’ve always wanted a chalk board wall and was never sure where to put it. Ever since I redid the kitchen here recently I have been puzzled with what to do with that wall. I bought the chalkboard paint at Walmart for a little over ten dollars a quart.

One little boy was quite impressed. Here’s the first message I found. I enjoyed the moment because it was soon replaced by a pumpkin headed man with a zombie like look in his eyes, oblivious to the fact that there was a dagger sailing through the air, aimed at his head. I said let’s keep the images cheerful so we don’t need to feel uneasy in the kitchen.

Happy Friday, everyone! Thanks for visiting!

Mary