Subject: Lampshade Project

Hello dear! Do you remember how I told you last week I didn't feel like doing anything around the house, but I managed to finish a project that had been hanging over my head since before Suz was born? I'm so excited to share with you...finally.



Here is the before:



It's just a boring old lampshade. I have had it and the lamp since college (I went through a major blue & yellow phase) and now it's on my dresser, which I like because I needed some height on there and the yellow is nice with my bedding/headboard AND I enjoy lamplight more than the overhead light, so this works on so many levels. But the shade was just so eh.

Here is the after:

Do you LOVE? I am obsessed. Seriously. It took so, so much work, but I love the results so it was totally worth it. I just checked my computer, and the date for the 'before' picture was January 9, 2010 - yikes! This project was so tedious and time-consuming, I felt like I was never going to finish.

My inspiration came from this wedding post. I used white muslin and just followed the instructions for creating each little ruffle. I used close to 10 yards of muslin (I kid you not) and there are probably more than 1,000 ruffles on this thing. I only know that because when I was pushing through to finish, I cut out over 300 circles and used all but, like, five for a pretty small area. I put the ruffles really close together to give it a "packed" look and if I hadn't done that I probably could have finished sooner and used less material, but I love the overall effect. You'll notice in the 'before' picture how there were cut-outs along the bottom of the shade. I was able to glue the fabric close enough to the holes that it covered them completely when the fabric puffed out.

Here it is with the lamp on:

I love the way the light shines through. I think this would be so perfect in a nursery or child's room because the light is so soft when it comes through the shade. I think it looks like hundreds of rose petals.

Ahh...it feels SO GOOD to be done with this project. And I love that I was able to take something I already owned and make it into something new. My only cost - besides hours of my life I will never get back and hot-glue burns out the wazoo - was for the muslin, which was pretty cheap. So, yeah - all in all, not bad.

Yay!
Kara