DIY: chevron lamp

Hello everyone!

Lately I have become OBSESSED with do-it-yourself blogs, so I have decided to tackle several projects. These chevron lamps are DIY project numero uno. The first, you ask? I have three in the works right now. I have started all three, but I am only going to write about the lamp project (since one complete half of it is finished). I went to thrift stores looking for a piece of furniture to go in the dining room under the big mirror (to hold wine glasses, the wine rack on top, and help clear off the kitchen countertops). It took a while to find something, but in the meantime, I found 2 matching lamps that just BEGGED to be redone! 

Let's start from the beginning. I went to Michael's for some reason or another, and I found these fabrics:

They go really well with my colors!!! Well the teal and lime green.. I haven't introduced orange into the mix yet, but I thought it might work out because the kitchen is red. Orange and teal is one of the "in" color combos at the moment.  

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How lovely! Although i do not care for the wooden molding.

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OMG I am dying to get a convex mirror!!!! Aren't these colors lovely? I know the green isn't in there, but it would work with a splash of it (i guess it's in the flowers?). And I LOVE those  orange side tables. 

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These colors aren't my favorite.. it's more coral than orange.. BUT i like the teal sideboard table (project #3, perhaps??), I love ghost chairs (I actually have a couple), and that chandelier is cool. Not to mention the PUPPY PICTURE!!!! Who doesn't love those?!?! 

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AHHHHHH so pretty!! Wallpaper is coming back, yall. Especially big, bold prints. Perhaps I'll do a blog post on that later... Anyhow, I knew I just had to find a project for these fabrics. Curtains? Pillows?... nope, lamp shades! (I would've gone with pillows, but I need a sewing machine for that). 

Well the first step is getting some lamps! Here the are, fresh from the thrift store! THEY WERE ONLY $7 EACH! 

ooooo, ahhhhh

close up of the base

gross border on top of the shade. 

Single lamp. This song popped in my head: all the single lamps! all the single lamps! now put your plugs up!

(man, i'm cheesy.) 

I removed the shade.. NAKED LAMP!

I covered the lamp halo and the cord with cling wrap and painters tape so I could spray paint the base. 

I spray painted them with spray primer. Mind you most of the blogs say to sand the base, but I did not. I WAS TOO EXCITED TO SAND! I wanted to see the final project! I had to get there fast!!! 

I thought it was funny to see them sitting out in the yard all alone.

While they dried, I took the fugly border off the top of the shade. 

It didn't come off very clean, but that's ok. They were $7, and if need be, I could buy new shades. 

I sprayed them blue. I went back and forth between orange and blue, orange and blue, orange and blue. BY THE WAY EVERYONE, THERE ARE A TON OF SPRAY PAINT COLORS!!!  I went to the store expecting to pick between construction orange and maybe three shades of blue. NOPE! TONS OF OPTIONS!! The orange I found was beautiful (it was called pumpkin orange), but I decided to go with the blue for the base.

Lamps inside. Doesn't the color look tons different from the outside pic?

Time for the shade. What to do? I know I talked about covering the shades with the fabrics I found. In fact, that was the main reason for buying these babies, but I decided I would just paint them (especially since they were cheap shades and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on them). Enter the CHEVRON PATTERN! Chevron is really in right now (like orange and blue!).

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chevron floors!

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chevron curtains! 

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chevron furniture! 

Not to mention tons of other things... ipod cases, skirts, walls, etc etc etc.. GOOGLE IMAGE IT, YALL! 

Now to get started on my shade!

I took my 45 degree triangle from my interior design class and drew the lines around the shade. I started at the fold in the fabric. It wasn't too hard because the triangle was the perfect width, so I could draw lines on both sides of the triangle (on the inside and outside), and then move it down to measure the next line. I did mark the length down from every width down from the top to make sure it wasn't crooked (does that make sense? you can sort of see the tick mark i made in the center top of this picture). 

Then I started adding the painter's tape..

..lots and lots of painters tape. I had scissors to cut the straight edge on the ends of the edges. I just eye-balled the angle. 

ALL FINISHED!!! It's on top of project #3, the sideboard table. More to come on that later.

Now, it took me forever to figure out what color I wanted to use.. again. Red or orange, red or orange, red or orange..... Like I said earlier, blue and orange are very "in" currently. But my kitchen is red. Not fire engine red, more like a cherry-ish red... so I decided I would not use the colors in the fabrics I found at Michael's, and instead I would use the kitchen red on the shades. 

I started painting with regular craft paint that I already had in my paint box with an old paint brush I had in my tool box (I think a sponge brush would work well, I just didn't have one on hand). I just dabbed it, rather than making strokes across just in case it went under the tape.

Done painting, and the beginning of the tape removal. I probably didn't give it enough time... maybe about an hour... again, i am a step skipper. 

But here she is:

FINAL PRODUCT!

The shade is crooked, I know. I just need to straighten out the bolt that's holding the shade. I took it with my phone camera, so the walls look beige, but they're not. They are a very light green.

Here it is in the "setting". I think the green looks nice with the blue and red (again the color is skewed bc of the phone camera. DONT JUDGE!).

Now I have to finished the second one... sighhhhh. 

UPDATE:

Here are some recent pictures with new side tables, better lighting, and the second lamp completed!

Linked to: http://www.addicted2decorating.com/

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{funny thing}

look where I found the ol boyfrand's sunglasses...

Under my tahoe's backdoor! Hilarious! They had been there for a couple weeks!

 They weren't even scratched!

Soon to come is project #2!!! I'll give you a hint... ok, i guess I'll give you the whole project bc I cant think of a clever hint... I am redoing the staircase!! IT'S A DOOZIE YALL! Huge blog entry on it soon! 

{WDE. football season is so close!}

this is the dawning of the age of aquarium!

My schweet boyfrand took me to the Georgia Aquarium for my birthday!!! (which was back in May, I am still super behind on the blog.. eek!) I have been wanting to go for FOR.EV.ER!!!! Like since it opened. I was suppose to go about 5 years ago, and it never happened. Then my mom and sister went after they dropped me off to study abroad in Italia (I can't really complain, bc I obviously went somewhere awesome as well). Then just about all of my friends went.. multiple times.. Anyhow, I made up for lost time and took TONS of pictures. Here are a few:

NEMO!!! 

whale shark!

i think we stood in this spot for forever. 

DOLPHIN!!! ee! eeee! eeee! (dolphin noise)

beluga whale!

parana!!! 

petting the stingrays! MY FAVORITE!!! 

my spiffy iphone app (instagram) let me do this nifty view.

BLOG UPDATE: uhhh, I just uploaded those pictures in about 10 seconds. Note to everyone who has a blog: RESIZE YOUR IMAGES!!! These were originally over 1500 pixels wide, and I lowered them to 500px each. It just made a HUGE difference. It usually takes a long long time to upload them otherwise (like 30 minutes. I'm talkin I usually have time to shower while they upload). I should've done this forever ago, I just thought it would take the same amount of time to resize them that it would take to upload... nope! 

<><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  <><  (<-- fishies?)

So I was in desperate need of a mower. I went back and forth over what to get. With gas mowers, I would have to buy gas every so often (not too big a deal). Then with electric mowers, I would have a cord.. LAME. It would be as if I was vacuuming the lawn.. I researched and looked and read reviews.. I wanted to find a good deal, but I didn't want it to fall apart after a few uses. Enter in THE PUSH MOWER!! 

YEP! Straight outta the olden days! hahah It got from target.com for surprisingly cheap (around $80), and I won't have to buy gas or worry about a cord. The reviews were all good, so I bought it! My yard isn't that big, and for some reason I like the swooshing noise the blades make (weird eh?), so it has been a great purchase! The only downside is that it gets stuck on sticks. I need to de-stick the yard before I mow, but that makes the yard look better anyhow, so it's really no big deal.

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My tornado relief shirt came in! I LOVE IT! The girl who made it didn't realize she was going to have so many orders. Apparently she had to hire people to help make and distribute the shirts! CRAZY! That explains why it took a couple months for it to come in. The design is just lovely. Sadly, she stopped selling them because of the high demand with her small resources :o(. 

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I am a self proclaimed grillmaster. Who are we kidding.. I AM THE GRILLMASTER!!!! (well, second to my dad).

I recommend the chimney starter to everyone. It makes lighting the charcoal so much easier/faster. You just shove a few crumpled balls of newspaper under the starter (where those holes in the bottom are) and then pour the charcoal on top. Then you light the paper through the holes at the bottom. 

After no time, the flame comes up through the chimney. Once it's ready, I do a little dance with the starter and the grill rack... I take a pot holder in one hand, and an oven glove on the other. I grab the starter with the glove hand, and I lift the grill rack off with the other. The starter will shoot out flames from both sides while you pour the charcoal into the bottom of the grill and some of the unburned paper will fly off the top of the rack (hence the dance to not get burned by either). Then I sit the starter somewhere where it won't burn a circle onto the surface (aka not the deck) and proceed to spread the charcoal out, all while swinging the rack around trying not to get burned. I finally place the rack back on the grill. I usually have to ball up a piece of aluminum foil to scrape off the excess paper that is stuck to the top of the rack. 

I hadn't grilled in FOREVER, and we ended up having a cookout a few weeks ago. There was so much leftover meat that I grilled out again the next week..

YUMMY! That steak had marinated for DAYS!!!! So so good. 

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{design work}

I did the Panama Mission trip t-shirt for my mom again this year. I did last year's as well (always nice to have repeat customers! thanks ma!) This year, she wanted a design that looked more like actual Panamanian art, like this: 

I most certainly could not whip up something like that on Illustrator without it taking forever, so I decided to hand draw it. 

The motto of Panama is "For Benefit of the World" which actually has to do with the Panama Canal, but it works for the mission trip as well. Here is the final back of the shirt after it was scanned in, photoshopped, and set up in Illustrator.

Not the best pic (it's a pic of the computer screen from my phone) but you get the general idea. 

We went to the lake for the 4th of July. Here is Possum in her festive headband!

I've never met a dog that's so chill about wearing things.. She will sit for forever wearing sunglasses, or a sombrero, or a jingle bell necklace..

Cotton and Diesel are jealous that Possum has made more appearances on the blog recently, so I will be showcasing them in the near future. 

There are LOTS of house things going on, but they will have to wait until next time. HOPEFULLY I'll get to update again before the end of the week.. especially since I realized I can resize the images and cut the time in half! 

{woo woo!}