Hello Blog world.
SHINE ON!
I have been on vacation for two lovely weeks. While on that vacation I have not been sitting around watching tv...Ok I lied I totally did that. But I have also got a lot of stuff done. Painted my bedroom, had a party, went out of town, had a new member of the family grace us <3 and caught up on some crafting. I know you are so proud. I know I am!
Anyways I suppose you are all here for the project not about me. By the way if you feel I failed you last week I did not. I did post a blog I just didn't broadcast it on Facebook. So if you didn't see that I suppose you should go back and look at that if you must. If not that's ok to. Thanks for the ones who did look though. Nice to know I have some people through the good times and bad.
So on to this weeks project. SHINE ON. My sister told me that I was shiny I will take that as a complement.
As you know I was painting my room and giving it a makeover. When we moved here it was a blue...picture a baby boy's room blue. I was trying to work with that but I couldn't so now its Green Glass. Its not enough to paint the room, I guess you have to decorate it. While on a budget that can get tricky. The first thing I did was get some pictures. My dad had some so he was nice enough to give them to me. I went with an Italian town theme. (More about that later.) They had a some brown and greens in the pictures so I was able to match them with my bed spread. Its funny how you get going on one thing and everything ties into it.
Which leads me to tonight's post, here by popular demand by the way. My Lamps!
I know what you are thinking...Oh she bought them that way. Nope you are wrong. But I am flattered. Really!
My parents had these two lamps that they were trying to sell but of course no one wanted them because they were UGLY. and they were about to be donated. So they donated them to me.
Ok so they weren't that bad. But they weren't very pretty. The shades were stained up and needed to be replaced.
Of course...That was the original goal, change the lamps and just buy new lamp shades. Then I thought what kind of crafter would I be if I just took the easy way out...ok so that's kind of a lie. I didn't want to buy new lamp shades because they are too expensive! Will some one please tell me why a lampshade with out a lamp is $15.00 to me that's insane. I know I know I am frugal. You don't have to remind me. So I decided with some pinterest research that I could probably just fix it myself.
My first idea was to cover it with fabric.
That idea was not my brightest...Ha-ha brightest get it? Because its lamps...Oh boy tough crowd.
I started to do it with fabric but with the first few steps I lost patience. I knew it wasn't going to turn out right, I then turned to an old friend. My spray paint. I had a brown paint laying around and I figured that would work fine.
Wrong.
See a lot of pinners tell you that you can use spray paint to paint lampshades. Well they must have a secret because both my mom and I tried this task and failed.
It comes out all weird and blotchy looking on the outside. When you turn a light on...HA you can see every little spray spot. That was not going to work.
I looked further in my research and found that some people used regular paint.
Now what I am about to tell you is important.
I have no idea how safe painting lamp shades is. I looked and saw no harm in it. Some people said to use certain kinds of paints but others said it didn't matter. Use your judgement.
These lamps are served more as a decoration purpose and will have limited use.
Now with that out of the way I found some brown paint that they used in my house. The owners before were nice enough to leave all the paint they used when they painted the house. So waste not. It was brown it worked. I used it.
They turned out great!
It doesn't effect the brightness too badly and very minimal on the streaks.
Now I also painted the base. I saved the best part for last. And by best I mean worst.
I decided I wanted it to match the buildings in the pictures. I have seen the textured spray paint and decided that's what I needed to make this perfect.
I have never experimented with the textured spray paint...And I hope to never experiment with it again.
It looks great. But its not the easiest to work with. When I told my mom and my sister how much trouble I was having they both chuckled and said "Well I could have told you that."
Sure.
Thanks guys.
It comes out thick and slow. and clumpy and yes I know that's the point but one doesn't think of these things right away.
The clumpyness didn't seem to bother the project any. I tried to even it out in some areas with a paper towel. Which is why it looks kind of drippy on the bottom. For these two lamps which stand about 24 inches high took two cans of spray paint. I wouldn't have thought that. That's something to consider when buying the texture spray paint.
Also shake the can through the whole process. Or you will get a watery grainy substance come out and try to ruin your project.
Overall this project was easy once you got past the obstacles.
So lets review.
Don't use spray paint on shades. No matter what anyone else tells you. They obviously sold their souls the craft devil and that's why they have the ability to do it and not you.
Think twice before you buy texture spray paint.
and last..Painters tape can be your friend or your enemy.
This is the part of the blog where I will show you my oops moment. I don't like to share all my flaws with you but this one I figured I should so you don't make the same mistake I did.
Tehehe Looks like the lamp is wearing a hair net.
Before spray painting I knew I had to cover up the light part of the lamp. Instead of wrapping it with painters tape I just put a plastic bag over top and taped the bottom. It doesn't show up to well in this picture but I do have painters tape around the end of the bag holding it down.
When I took the tape off this is what happened.
Unfortunately it happened with both of them. This one was a little worse. I left it for now and will probably just touch it up with an acrylic paint.
So Instead of paying close to 60.00 dollars on lamps (yes that is the average if you want two nice looking lamps.) I paid closer to $13.00
Ending supplies:
Painters tape: 2.00
Rustoleum Textured paint: 5.00 per can (2)
Lamps: Free
Paint: Free.
Go to the thrift store you can get some lamps and the shades there probably cheaper. Just go in with Imagination.
Check the Clearance section in your local hardware store or where ever you get paint. You would be surprised!
Just to give you a sneak peak of what they lamps look like in my room...
More about my piece of little Italy in the next blog to come!
This project was:
See you next Thursday!
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This turned out really nice. I love your room!
ReplyDeleteIts coming together that's for sure!
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