Recovering a Lampshade

dear creative friends, 


i think that christmas really did me in this year... i've had a hard time getting back into sewing, crafts, and refinishing furniture. i can't believe this is my first project since the new year.  man, i really need to kick it in to gear. 


i picked up 2 of these tea light lamps from GW for only $1.50 each. i just thought they were way too cute!  i've had a hard time deciding on what to recover the top part of the lamp with... until this weekend... here's the before and after.

i've had this large roll of packing paper for awhile.  i love the simple natural look of it and normally use it for wrapping gifts.

the first thing i did was tear off the old fabric cover.  i had to bust out my seam ripper for this.  dude... i thought it would only take me a couple of minutes to remove the cover, but it ended up taking me awhile.  there were a lot of stitches and glue holding that baby on. i'm glad i did this little project because it made me rethink getting into reupholstering... bite off a little at a time nori...

this is a lot of mess for such a lil thing.

the fabric wasn't salvageable so i made a pattern for the new cover. i took the bare shade and traced around one side, then tipped it over to the next side and traced again until i did all 4 sides. 

i added a 1 1/2 inch border around the whole thing. 

i cut it out and used it as a template on my packing paper. after cutting out the lampshade paper, i cut out little V notches where the edge of the lampshade would be. 

then i stamped the whole thing using my favorite stamp set (SU! Fifth Avenue Floral). 

i forgot to take a picture, but it always looks best to stamp off the edge of the page.  it makes the image flow.


next... gluing it on. :o)  i just lined up the shade and the paper, put a line of hot glue on the edge and folded it over. 

when i got to the end, i laid down the edge of the lampshade and folded the end of the paper over to figure out where to put the crease. then i made a sharp crease and applied hot glue to the very outer edge.  

then i laid the lampshade back on top, waited a sec for the glue to cool and voila!  a nice crisp edge. 

i painted the base of the lamp with 2 coats of Valspar Black Satin, and put the lampshade on...

hmmm... this was just.... Eh.  it didn't have the crisp look i wanted...it needed something else...
i hot glued a piece of satin ribbon to the top and bottom, and.... ahhhhhhhh.... the look i was going for! :o)

ok... this is kind of random, but i stumbled across this video today and i just had to share.  it's just a sweet, make you feel good kind of video.  enjoy and have a BLESSED week!

i'm linking to DIY Day!, Makeover Party, and Met Monday.