Light the Way

When I find a piece of furniture that's seen better days, I can usually see what it can be.  But I think I've always taken lamps for granted.  They were what they were - take 'em or leave 'em.  Then I realized that the shade is actually a canvas.  It screams for creative expression.

I did this wordy lamp a few months ago.  You can read about it here.

Recently, my daughter found this awesome turquoise lamp at a thrift shop and thought I'd want to do something with it. Ummm, Yes!

So I started looking for a shade and found this cool one at Target.

The turquoise reminded me of road maps, so that's what I decided to use to cover the shade.  

First, I laid the shade on the map and rotated the shade to make sure the map would cover.  Kinda like flipping a box on gift wrap to make sure it will cover.  Then I traced the shade as I flipped it.

Next, I cut it out on the trace lines.  Notice it's not a straight rectangle because the shade itself slopes inward.

Then I taped it to the shade using painters tape, and used a razor blade knife to trim the map closer to the rolled edge of the shade.  I cut lightly so I didn't cut through the shade.

Then I used a spray adhesive and sprayed both the back of the map and the shade.  I tried to stay away from the rolled edges, since they  wouldn't be covered.  Then I simply stuck the map to the shade and smoothed out any bubbles.

Not bad, but I wanted to cover the raw edges of the paper.  Since I was afraid that finding a match for the turquoise might be hard, I decided to go with another color.  Orange or red?

I decided to go for red.

I put a thin bead of craft glue on the lamp and then glued the ribbon in place.

Voile!

Makes me wonder why I settled for boring lamps all these years!

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