Friday, May 20, 2011

My first DIY project

For my mom's birthday, Katie and I decided to makeover a room in her house that was on my mom's to-do list. She wanted a white, light pink, and gray color scheme. The walls are painted gray, so we decided to do pink and white accents.

Because the room is not huge, the pieces we used needed to be on the smaller side. When the bed is placed against the wall, there is very limited room for a night stand, so Katie and I bought a small round table and spray painted it white. We knew a lamp needed to be next to bed, so.....enter DIY project.

Katie and I found this lamp at Hobby Lobby. We LOVED the base and knew it would fit the shabby chic theme of the room, but the color was wrong and the beads had to go.

Let me say, I have never made a lamp shade before, but I was determined to figure it out. I started with the outermost seam, and began to gently tear it away.

It actually came off surprisingly easy, so I moved to the bottom

Now, this next part was kind of tricky. I needed to keep the inner white layer in order to help filter the light and keep it from being so bright. I started peeling it off the top in order to get to where the green was sealed, but that wasn't working

So I cut it...

and peeled it off.

Removing the green fabric was the easy part. As I sat there with an ugly shade, I was trying to figure out the best way to get the pink fabric on. I wasn't necessarily looking for the easiest way to do it, but the way that would look the best.

Katie suggested I cut the pink fabric into large triangles rather than wrapping the lamp shade in the fabric. I bought liquid stitch to adhere the fabric to the frame.

First, I attached all of the fabric triangles to the top of the frame wrapping it a little over the top

Then, I trimmed the triangles to fit within the triangles of the frame a little better. I put liquid stitch on the metal frame and between the 2 pieces of fabric. I went on the way around the lamp and the bottom

I also bought ribbon to cover the seams as well as the top and bottom of the lamp. First, I attached the ribbon to the vertical seams and used paper clips and tape to hold it while the liquid stitch dried

Then I attached the bottom. The ribbon came divided into 1/4. I adhered the ribbon just as it was packaged to the vertical seams. For the top and bottom, I unfolded it once and wrapped it around the bottom and over the top of the frame

This lampshade took me about 6 hours to complete, with a lot of that being drying time. Overall, I think for my first DIY project, it didn't turn out too bad.

I have learned that I really enjoy doing DIY crafty projects, almost to a point that it drives Max crazy. I keep looking for pieces that we have or shopping for things that we don't need just so I can change them.

I will post pictures of the completed room and the other little projects Katie and I did over the weekend.