Hanging Lampshade Make-over 09/04/12

During my travels last summer, I happened across this beautiful repurposed hanging lamp. I fell in love with it but not with the $$$ price tag! I thought maybe I could rig up something of my own.

(Sorry, once again, I forgot to take pictures of the process...)  

Well, it's been a year since I considered this project  so I thought it was time to give it a go.  I took an old ripped shade thats supposed to go on a table lamp and ripped off all the material. I recovered the 22" metal frame with a tight t-shirt, removed the sleeves and handsewed it onto the frame.

I sewed some ruffles and glued them on along with some rosettes and "dingle-berries" (that's what we call ball fringe in my family). I tea-dyed and cut-up an old lace curtain and sewed it to the inside so it casts a pretty shadow when lit.

I bought a hanging lamp kit at Lowe's and voila. It was done. The hardest part was deciding where to put the frills. At first I draped the ruffles but it made it look too much like a wedding cake! I'm happier with the "victorian corset" look. It has a pretty hour-glass shape that shows-off the lace.  I still want to add a white chain or scrunchy over the cord.

Yellow at the Cottage 06/29/12

When the temperature gets this hot all you wanna do is sleep!

Or at least try to find a cool spot to rest!

Warhol Pet Painting (kind of a "how-to") 01/19/12

This is my daughter's dog, Pee Wee. Pee Wee was an older dog who was left for months at the kennel because her owner died. My daughter cared for Pee Wee and got to know her while she worked at the kennel. My daughter fell in love with her and took her home. Pee Wee was a great dog with a kissable nose! Sadly, she passed away about a year ago.


This year for Christmas, I painted a Warhol-style picture of Pee Wee for my daughter.

I used the photo above as my starting point. I'm sorry I didn't take pics of the process, otherwise this would have been a very nice "how-to" entry. But in a nutshell:

I enlarged and printed the photo in black and white on the xerox machine in high contrast. Then I traced over the dog's outline from the xeroxed enlargement onto a plain sheet of paper. (I always tape my tracings to the window and the daylight works just like a light box!) On the back side of that paper, I covered each pencil line (back to the window!) with lead by swiping the broadside of the pencil lead over it. A bit of artists charcoal would also work.

Placing the image rightside up on your canvas, trace, again over the lines. This is how I transferred the exact image onto each square of the canvas. I wanted to use carbon paper but who has that anymore?
Then it was just a matter of filling in the spaces with paint, like paint-by-number! It was a very LOW tech project.