Learning by Doing

I've always been bothered by this lamp in my bedroom. It was a very cheap purchase that filled an immediate need when we moved in to our home. Well, during our snow blast 2010 I had just too much time on my hands and this lamp was really buggin' me. Too small, shade too white, base too ugly, bad proportion, etc. . .

Searching through my thrift store stash in the garage, I found this sad little number and it's sad little friend, Mr. Shade. The size was working for me so I decided to get to work. I'd never recovered a shade before but I always learn best by just jumping in trying.



I pulled some handmade paper from my paper stash. I had purchased the paper from 10,000 Villages years ago for around $2.00. I spent about 45 minutes doing the math to figure out how to cut the paper to fit the shade. I'm not a very sharp pencil when it comes to math so this almost did me in.

I cut 7 pieces of triangularly (is that a word?) shaped paper, glued them to the shade, and then trimmed it out with miniature bias tape. I found the bias tape in Great Nana's lace and trim box. Before I finished the trim, I decided that I needed to lengthen the shade. I added rectangular shaped paper with the raw edges exposed to the bottom. I folded the paper to look like a box pleat. It did the trick.

I painted the base of the lamp with some acrylic craft paint. I didn't use a brush. I used a baby wipe dipped in paint to avoid brush strokes. I used a caramel color and then a gray color over it to tie in with the artwork above the lamp.

The lamp cost around $3.00 at the thrift store, the shade was $0.50, and the paper for the shade was $2.00. So for $5.50 I have a new, larger lamp. It's not a perfect solution, but I enjoyed the process of learning by doing. I'm really proud of my math achievement!



I've linked this post to Twice Remembered's Make Your Monday. Check it out!