Saturday, August 13, 2011

My new lamp!

Today I completed my project of turning this
into thisWhen we were on vacation in Maine a few weeks ago, I saw this amazing lamp at an antique store that was worth the effort of hauling home on the 9 hour car trip. I paid $20 for it. The thing I liked most about it was the eagle on the lamp base:The first thing I did was trace the lampshade onto bristol board and cut off the old lamp shade (it was garbage bag material, just wound around the wire!)

I decided to cover it using an idea I had seen on mama-says-sew, which was for a nice, ruffly lampshade. I bought a rough, almost burlap-like fabric to cover the bristol board with.

First, I cut it into strips:
Then I ironed them down the center so that there would be less hangy threads (without having to do any sewing).
and I was left with this:

Then came the VERY long process of gluing the little strips onto the bristol board!

Basically I would just put glue either on the board or on the piece, and desperately try to get it glued on nicely before it dried or I burnt myself.
As a result, there are some big clumps of glue hidden nicely under the fabric. My fingers are also quite burnt.This took several hours to finish, and got really boring after a while! I definitely had to split it up into several sessions to save my sanity (and my fingers.)

Next, I took the lamp outside and got to spraypainting:
Thennnn all I had to do was put the lampshade on and:
Very happy with this little guy!

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