Lovely Lamp

Do you remember when I went to the Arizona Tour de Thrift a couple of months ago?  Well I picked up this lovely lamp at Goodwill that day.  It was in great shape, and wasn't really in need of a makeover, but when I put it in the girls room, it became obvious that the hot pink was too bright and I needed a softer, more textural (is that a word?) finish on the lamp.  So I started to mess around with the lamp, unsure of what the end result would be.

 

I'm guessing you may not be too excited about the first "after" picture I have here.  This is in the middle of painting the pink lampshade.  Yes, I painted it!  At this moment I was pretty sure I had either lost my mind (ruining a perfectly good lampshade), or I was on the verge of brilliance!

I happened to have some Gesso on hand (don't ask me why or how--it is very old), and since this is what they use to prime canvas for painting, I figured it couldn't ruin the shade (probably could have spray painted it too, if I wasn't worried about the beads).  I just painted light strokes on the shade.  At first I kind of did a white wash (willing for a little pink to show through), and then decided to go for a little more coverage.

And then I started experimenting with crepe paper roses.  I tried some fabric rosettes, too, but ultimately decided to hot glue the crepe paper roses around the edges of the lamp.

I hadn't made the roses before.  I read through a few different tutorials on line, and then kind of did my own thing.  Each rose is a bit different, but that is good, I suppose.

I started by folding the crepe paper in half lengthwise.  Then folding down a point 3 inches or so from one end.

I used the remaining 3 inches to form the center of the rose.

Then I twisted, wrapped, whatever, the rest of the length of crepe paper around itself until I was happy with the shape. Then a bit of glue to itself and some more on the edge of the lamp and voila.

Now, I'm not sure where I got the idea or if it was even necessary at all, but I sprayed each rose with a little aerosol hairspray.  I'm thinking this helped lighten and coat the roses a bit.  Someone tell me if you've heard to do that before, or if I totally made that up!  I made smaller roses to go around the top of the shade.

And here is the after!  The fabric rosettes I made were too big for the shade, so I just glued one right on the lamp base.    I'm trying to decide if I like the streaky effect it gives when lit up.  I think it looks kind of artsy.  My daughter said I should do another coat of paint.

The whole thing reminds me of some fancy french corset or something.  And looks really pretty in my girls' pretty purple room I haven't shown you yet (because it isn't finished)

I thought about covering the entire shade with roses like this pretty one from Pottery Barn Kids, but it didn't seem like it would work well with the shape of shade I was using.  You could try it!  Just plan lots of time for making roses!