I decided when we moved in that I wanted to design the guest room around an existing comforter we already had. It’s a black background with silvery-gray design throughout. For color-splashes I chose citrus green and grape.
I started the room by putting together two bedside tables that will also serve as small dressers. I generally depend on my husband for these projects, but he’s so busy on outdoor stuff that I decided to give it a go myself. It took about three hours, but I did it.
I purchased two lamp bases, and two plain off-white lamp shades.
I wanted dress up the shades with some fabrics using the black, green and purple motif.
Here’s how I trimmed them out: For the first layer, I cut a 2-inch wide of the black/white fabric. Using a seam ripper, I picked away at the threads until I had about 1/2″ of frayed threads across the top edge.
Before I attached the fabric to the shade, I folded over 1/2″ on the bottom edge and ironed in order to have a clean edge showing. I then hot-glued the frayed fabric around the top edge, with the frayed part up above the shade edge.
The next layer was the citrus green. I cut it 1-1/2″ wide, folded in half and ironed it smooth. I hot-glued that along the bottom edge of the black fabric; the raw edge is in the center.
The last layer, the purple, was cut 3/4″ wide; I folded in half and ironed, and then I used a pinking shears and cut the raw edges so that it ended up about 1/2″ wide when flattened out. It was sort of hard to pink in a straight line so I had to fix a few areas, but it turned out pretty good. If you don’t have a pinking shears, you could just cut in a wobbly line down the edge in order to give it interest!
So, here’s how the lamp shades turned out!
I also made two queen pillowcases using the same fabrics as the lamp shades! I’ve made these before and blogged about them here, so I won’t go through that again! Have you ever made your own pillowcases? I love having being able to make unique pillowcases to brighten up a room! Here is the finished product!
Although the room isn’t quite finished, it’s definitely ready for company. I have a headboard that I got off Craigslist that I need to refinish, but that’s a project for another day (week, month). I hope you’ll come back to see it finished!
I hope you come visit All Around the Mulberry Bush again! Have a great week –
Linda
Very clever idea to decorate your own lampshades!!!