Giving The Illusion That I Get Things Done
If I ignore the fact that there's still a little bit of painting to do, that a lot of trim hasn't been installed, and that there is a severe lack of artwork on the walls, I can now call the spare bedroom DONE! It used to look like this:
But now it looks WAAAAY different. Go over here to get a peek (And enter to win a $150 Walmart gift card. Someone is going to win. It might as well be you.).
Part of that room redo includes making a couple of DIY light fixtures. One hasn't been started yet. Which, URGH. I have no clue why not. It won't take much more than an hour or two and all of the materials have been in the house for months. Instead of working on that one first, I decided to start with the light fixture that nearly murdered me in my sleep.
It's kind of awesome, it just took a little longer than I thought it would. And by "a little bit" I mean, "I thought it was a 2-hour project, but I forgot to carry the 1 or something." It took more like six hours from start to finish.
It started life as a plain old IKEA paper lantern. Nothing fancy. Absolutely cheap. We're talking $5 for the shade and $4 for the cord set. I added about $6 worth of tissue paper and a bottle of glue to it, so the total cost for the light was around $16. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.
I started by cutting my tissue paper into little 1 1/2" by 1 1/2" squares. I used red, light pink, and dark pink tissue.
Then I crumpled up one little square so that the center made a point. Like this:
And I dipped the point in some plain ol' school glue.
All that was left was to stick it onto the light shade.
I didn't try to make a pattern or anything. I just stuck one little square on the lamp shade, then did it again, and again, and again, and OMG. A bunch of hours later, I had finally covered every inch of the paper lantern.
The squares weren't cut perfectly evenly and they weren't spaced perfectly evenly, but it obviously didn't matter. Once a few hundred were glued to the lamp shade, it looked like a giant fluffy flower. Or something.
Alexis says it's the "pretty pink light." I'm willing to go along with that description.
Oh, and, HELLO THERE FANCY LOFT BED! Go check out the rest of the room over yonder if you haven't already.
(P.S. If you ever decide to try this, work with a smaller shade. Trust me on that.)
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Reader Comments (6)
The light is truly awesome . . . but holy crap, do you have way more patience than I ever will. I can't even bring myself to attempt those tissue paper pom pom balls, let alone a ton of tiny pieces and glue!
Good job!
so cool. but how on earth will one dust such a thing? (my house has lots and lots of dust so i have to ask. maybe you don't have too much. ount know.)
@hello haha narf--When it eventually starts to gather dust, I'll just use a vacuum attachment on it. It's surprisingly sturdy (as proven by Max, who spent two days attacking it just for fun). It probably won't get that dusty, though, because the only air vent in that room is under the loft. Not much blows directly up there.
What? You took down the Steelers trim!?! But no, that is AWESOME!!!!!!!
ps. When did you get so crafty?
that is an awesome lamp for sure!!! i would be afraid it would catch on fire or something, though.
@Rebecca--It was firefighter approved. :-)