Showing posts with label lamp. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lamp. Show all posts

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Giving a Lampshade New Life with Paint: Living Room



Today's home craft features a lamp in my living room.




The shade that I had for this floor lamp broke; I found this one in the attic.
It was dirty looking, so I spray painted it with a light green I had in the basement.
Yes, it looked a bit small, too.

It definitely needed something more.

I got out my sewing measuring tape and measured the top.
I divided the 16 inches into 5 sections of just over 3 inches and marked them out with a piece of chalk
(if I was to do this again, I would have used a light colored chalk: the blue was a bit harder to get off when the whole thing was done).



 I then measure around the base of the lampshade and divided the nearly 30 inches into 5 sections of 6", starting the first section in what looked like was the middle of the section on the top rim.





I used Frog tape for this project since it keeps paint from bleeding underneath;
but because I used spray paint, masking tape may have worked as well.



Starting at the top chalk mark, I ran a piece of tape down to the bottom chalk mark,
and then down to the opposite side chalk mark to make an upside down "V,"
I continued this all the way around.


The following are some ideas that could be used from this point:


- a smaller upside down "V" beneath the larger upside down "V,"




-an upright smaller "V" inside the larger upside down "V,"


 
 - upright "V's" starting from the middle of each upside down "V."


I chose this last pattern for my lampshade.
I pressed down the tape well all over the lampshade.


I had some left-over white spray paint from another project and sprayed it onto the whole outside of the lampshade.



Once the paint was dried, I removed the tape
and then used my glue gun to apply a wrap of fringe ribbon along the bottom.





The pattern shines through when the light is turned on.



It adds some character to the room when it is off, too.


It is always fun to shop at home for an easy update.

Thank you for stopping in!


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Friday, March 22, 2013

Repurposing a Lamp with Paint.


The weekend is here, so I'll share another fun and useful craft.

If you have an old lamp you are not fond of, an easy way to alter it is to paint it.
I mix up some Plaster-of-Paris into a cup of base-coat color paint til I get the thickness/consistency I desire, and it seems to stick pretty well to any surface.
For this piece, I swirled the paint/plaster so it looked rough, like waves.

(I hope to make a "tools/recipe/helpful tips" page here soon,
and will give more precise instructions for the mixture then).

Once the base-coat is dried, I then paint the images or scene.


This lamp came from a charity type yard sale to help a little girl with a debilitating disease,
so it seemed an even more worthwhile decision to purchase the lamp for repurposing.


My Kindergartener son has had a thing for Jonah and the whale this past year,
so for Christmas, I painted the lamp for his bedroom.


I used a permanent ink and calligraphy pen to add the verse after the scene was painted and dried.





I practiced the writing on paper a few times first.
I liked this verse as it could be something that might help him someday.

 



That is supposed to be Jonah sinking in the sea,
with a shark off to the right for my son's benefit
since he loves all "dangerous" sea creatures at this point.



His other favorite, the squid, made it on the back side of the lamp.







It is a small thing, really, just a little paint on a lamp,
inexpensive and using something to "recycle" it,
but seeing how much he loves this sort of thing, made it worth it.


Have a fantastic weekend and if you get a chance,
pick up a paintbrush and capture something beautiful around you.



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