More Lamps!!!

Ya'll are probably so sick of me and my 'lamp thing' I've got goin' on!

I was just over at Not Just A Housewife, and Stacey has posted a couple more of her creations that are just fantastic. You can go see them here and here!  She comes up with the COOLEST ideas!!

I thought I would share with you a couple of lamps that I've made, before I discovered blogging!!  I love monograms and personalization.  But, since my last name has 11 letters, I usually just stick to the monograms!! 

The first lamp I'm sharing was made with an old pickle jar that my daddy gave me.  He bought this huge jar of pickles at the DOT Foods 'store' in Macomb, IL.  He thought he got such a deal and was so proud of himself!!  I don't really know how long it took him to eat them all.........  I miss him so much!!  Anyway - I wanted to keep the jar!  I printed out my "W" from word and cut it out of the paper  - to make a stencil.  I taped the stencil to the glass, and painted the "W" with black acrylic paint.  (This was before my Cricut - otherwise I would have used vinyl!)  I stained the lampshade with some wood stain, and that was a chore.  Got an idea on how to stain it and, well, it was a learning experience!!  I KNOW that water and oil don't mix.  I promise I do!!  But I guess I didn't REALLY think about what the stain was made of.  I got a 5 gallon bucket and made sure my shade would fit in it.  Then I almost filled it up with water, and then poured some of my stain in, too.  I thought that it would give it more like a tea-stained effect.  nu-uh  Not even close....  The fabric on the outside of the shade didn't do anything.  Didn't take any color at all.  The plastic 'liner'? Well, it came out kind of  'polka-dotted'......  and didn't dry.......  I had an oily MESS!!  hhmmmmm  now what??  I let the shade sit in the sun for most of the afternoon, then wiped down the plastic and got rid of the oily mess.  Then I took a rag, dipped it in the stain, and then just stained the fabric like you would wood.  I think it turned out pretty good, in spite of it being a learning project!!! 

The picture on the left is of me and my brothers and my sister.  I think I was about 3 months old.  I love this picture!!  (Yes, I was a surprise!!!  Daddy was 37 and Mom was 36 when I was born!!)  The other picture is of my kids about 15 years ago.  I think it is my favorite of them.  Black and white pictures are the best!!

My next lamp sits in my kitchen next to the fridge.  I use it as a night light.  I hate getting up in the middle of the night and having to turn on bright lights.  I got the jar from WalMart.  I used a paint pen and wrote 'Believe' on the side.  I see a lot of bloggers are using 'Simplify' as their word of the year.  I think Believe is mine, for more than a year........  Kind of a life motto..........

I got my little bear at a craft show.  Isn't she cute?  I haven't changed anything about my shade, and I don't think I will.  I like the simplicity of this lamp!!

Okay, I promise, I will try NOT to post any more lamps (for a while, at least)!!  I CAN do other things!  And we'll get to those in a few days!!

Happy Thursday!  Happy March!!  Spring is ALMOST here!!  I saw a robin Tuesday - actually 3 of them at once!!  I heard the doves coo-ing this morning and birds were singing!  My daffodils and jonquils are coming up!  I love this time of year!!!

Hugs ~~ Suz

I'm joining the fun at these parties!!

ANOTHER Lamp!

I had a little 'situation'.  I changed the lamp in my bathroom.  The old one was a small lamp, and it used the same kind of bulb as a night light.  It was just enough light that when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, you don't HAVE to turn the big light on.  Perfect - except the lamp base was a couple of snowmen with BLUE accents and the shade was a faded light baby blue.  And my bathroom?  It is NOT blue - well - it isn't blue - but we still have the early 70's blue toilet and tub.  I TOLD you we're in the middle of redoing our house!!   Anywho - - I got a wild hair (actually, I have several - - going GRAY early is very predominant in my family - - and do you know how crazy those hairs are???  WILD AND CRAZY,  hmmm maybe THAT'S why Steve Martin had gray hair at a young age too....) I really didn't need to post all that, did I?  LOL..   OK OK back to my lamp story....

So I put a NEW lamp in my bathroom a couple of weeks ago, and now I have to keep my bathroom doors shut at night or I don't sleep so well.  The lamp takes an appliance bulb.  And the smallest wattage is 40w.  And it doesn't help that the ONLY lamp shade I could find that was a good size for the lamp was WHITE.  Now, I need sunglasses to put on when I get up in the middle of the night.  LOL

I decided to try to darken the shade a bit.  (I didn't take during photos because I just wasn't sure how this wild hair was going to turn out - now I wish I did)

First of all, I covered the shade with some 'Script-y' scrapbook paper.  Since I only had 12" x 12" pieces, I had to piece it.  Next time, I'll be more careful of how wide my seams are, but for now, I'm ok with this.  I learned something.  Learning is good!!  I Mod-Podged the paper to the lamp and put a coat of Mod Podge over the paper.  I painted the inside of the lamp shade dark brown (I need to put another coat on it, but was so excited, I didn't take the time last night.  PLUS - - it was late when the hairs went wild!!).  Next, I rubbed some of the paint on the outside, then wiped it off.  It aged the paper perfectly.  Now to 'finish' the edges.... 

So - I have this 'thing' for twine....  Given the choice of fancy fru-fru ruffly bows or plain twine?  I'll take the twine every time!!  I hot glued twine around the top, and looped it.  I LOVE how that turned out!!  Then I hotglued the twin around the bottom, and made a bow.  I applied my 'W' that I cut out with my cricut (Lord Fontleroy Brown is the font - the same font I used for my other lamps - look here!).

I put the shade back on the lamp and turned it on!  Love it!!

Waddayathink?? 

By the way - pretty sure that's ALL you get to see of my bathroom in it's BEFORE state...  :-)

Have an awesome day!

Hugs ~~ Suz


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My Lamp Redo

I hate bronze lamps.  Really really REALLY don't like em.

My ex-mother-in-law went through a phase (before she was my ex....) - we got a pair of bronze lamps for Christmas .....

THREE years in a row.....  and then bronze floor lamps...... two years in a row......

And while I hate them, the thought of doing anything with them never crossed my mind.  They are kind of, well, utilitarian.....  They serve a purpose.  They're there..... 

After looking through all these wonderful blogs, I thought I would try to do SOMETHING with them. 

So, here's my attempt.  I'm not sure I'm 'sold' on them.  I mean - - they look good - a WHOLE lot better than they did, but I'm just not sure if I like them in my living room.  I'm thinking I might like them better if the bases looked more 'rusty' or something.  More of a brown base than the blue/gray.    The spraypaint I used was soo cool.  It's Rust-oleum, but I have NO IDEA what color it is.  There is no name on the can....  But it's like a deep blue-gray.  Some of the pictures just really don't show the color very well.  Anyway - - here we go....

Here is the before picture.  I really don't like the color of the shade either....  You can't tell in the picture, but it's just kind of a blah putty, tan, nothing kind of color.

And check out the bronze!!  It's even got some shading going on.  YUCK!!

Here's the paint I used.  (We live in a small town and our WalMart doesn't have much of a selection.)

Here's one of my lamps - finished.   I had taken lots of pictures showing how I did the lampshade, but it didn't turn out like I wanted, and it was angering me.......  So you only get to see the finished product of the shade, not the how to's of it. 

The picture is kinds of dark, so you can't really see the color.  It kind of looks blue here.

The next picture is pretty much how they look.  The paint was neat to work with.  It didn't take very

long to dry, either. 

Here's the other cover I did.  I think I like this one better than the red, but I just don't

have much blue in the room.  My mother-in-law made a quilt for me, and it has some trim on it

that is very close to this material.  So, I like it, but I'm still not sure if the room all goes together.

Thanks for looking!!  Comments are always welcome!!

Hugs ~~ Suz