"I Love Lamp!"

Wow time flies!! Alex and I are so excited to soon be together again. We haven’t seen each other for 3 months now. We know it’s not fun, but sometimes being a military couple means living apart for a while. He is graduating from AFIT with a MS in Aeronautical Engineering and will be headed down to FL before the end of the month. The rest of our household goods will follow him at the beginning of April. When all the furniture is in the house we will begin posting new pictures of the house so you can see the color scheme we are going with and what the place looks like with our furniture in it. 

I have been very busy painting and painting and painting! Besides that tedious task, I have been able to do at least one fun project that I am going to share with you. I’ve wanted to make these lampshades that I saw on Pinterest ever since I “pinned” the project months ago. I found the directions on Mama SaySew.

The Mama Says Sew inspiration 

 The original inspiration form Anthropologie

First I needed lamps, cheap lamps! Alex and I found the lamps pictured below at a thrift store for only $10 for the pair. I couldn’t believe it!

Unfortunately the lampshades were more expensive. It was not possible to find used lampshades in good condition for the size and shape I wanted. The cheapest new pair I could find was $15/shade.

The color I used to spray paint the lamps was satin golden maize. I thought it would go perfectly with that gray, black, white, and yellow theme we are pursuing for our bedroom.

 

I purchased 5 yards of burlap to cover the shades. I covered each lamp shade with burlap leaving excess material to fold into the inside of the lamp and secure with hot glue. I then started to cut strips of burlap. Mama Says Sew suggests these strips should be 1.5 times the length of the lamp shade. I used a factor of 2, which allowed me to have more squiggles on my lampshade. I also had a variety of widths of burlap strips which I felt gave the shade more dimension and character.

Once each strip of burlap was cut I folded it in half and ironed it to produce a straight edge. I then put hot glue on the folded edge and glued that to the lampshade. I played with the placement of each strip when gluing it to the shade. Yep, there is no rhyme or reason for the placement of the burlap strips J  

Cost Break Down

Lamps: $10

Shades: $30

Burlap: $14

Total: $54 or $27/lamp

Wow can you believe it! One shade, no lamp, at Anthropologie costs $88. I got a whole lamp set for $34 cheaper than a single shade. Ahhh, the gratification of DIY! The only downside was the minor glue gun burns I inflicted on myself while accomplishing this project.

Here is an “after” picture of the two lamps. We are going to put them in the master bedroom.

If you look at the wall behind the picture of this lamp you will get a sneak peak of our bedroom wall design.