A Fun DIY Lampshade!

I have been wracking my brain with what to do for this lampshade that my darling husband got for free from his friends grandmother.  It has a cool vintage mint color along its spiraled stand and the light hinges and extends out about a foot over our brown sofa.  I tried to paint these colorful flowers over the cracked-cream color shade, aiming to make it look mosaic or something but after a few weeks, my eye still hated it!  So I ripped it off in hopes  of discovering a fanciful look for this poor lamp, now with no shade...  I was brainstorming as I was cooking dinner, looking at different ideas online (multitasking!) and at the time, I couldn't find what I had in my mind : / rrrrgg!

I was stuck looking back and forth from dinner in progress to this naked lamp shade trying to think of what I could possibly do... Then!  Then I looked over at a roll of ribbon I picked up from Costco a few weeks ago and it suddenly all came together!  Out came the trusty hot glue gun!  I started measuring and cutting ribbon in lengths that would lay from top to bottom...

Starting with one strip, I lined the shade-skeleton with hot glue, the width of the first ribbon, and wrapped the edge of the ribbon around the skeleton of the shade and over the hot glue (obviously, right... o geez!).  There it stuck, all beautifully finished, so I did the same with the top of the ribbon.  The second and all the rest of the ribbons were lined up with the edges of each ribbon before it at the bottom and bringing the ribbon up, they overlapped the last ribbon by at least half so it would all fit...

Turns out, it looked cool!  Taking pictures with my iPhone does not do it justice!  It does dim the light quite a bit because of the dark ribbon but I am totally satisfied for the time being and now that I have done it once, I can do it again with different kinds of ribbons!  Seasonal even!  Oh, I love being a homemaker!  Thank You Lord!

There you have it!  A DIY lampshade!  Have fun all and let me know if you'd try it or if you have tried it!  I'd love to hear about your lampshades!!!

Frugal Decorating

Where does one start?!  I got this mural for free from the Starbucks I worked at for 10 + years, so I had it sitting around.  They were remodeling and throwing a bunch of this great stuff away so I was able to take it home.  I loved the colors so I knew I would use it for something in the house.  But when?

That when was today!  A few months ago I purchased the words, "love" and "faith" with intentions of hanging them on a wall, but I needed a backdrop for them so I chopped off the bottom portion of this mural to do just that.  

In order to hang them on the wall, I scuffed two little parts on the back so hot glue would stick.  This is where I hot glued twine to the back of each one and reinforced each side with a couple staples so they could be hung on the wall.

Then I took each word and did the same scuff on the front and hot glued the hanging parts from the back of the words onto the front of the mural piece.














This middle portion was a left over from the two pieces that I had imagined I needed.  It fit perfectly here.

On the love piece you might notice the blue.  I added the blue because it was very brown.  I love brown but the "faith" hanging has the lively blue so to bring it all together, I added the blue to the "love" hanging.








And here is the result!  The piece was made to compliment the two picture frames that say, "Let me do what I was meant to do..." , " I wanna take care of you."  Those were the lyrics to the song my husband and I danced to at our wedding.  The song is by Colin Raye, "Take Care Of You."  Truly the perfect song for us. 

Hopefully this has been a little inspiring for the frugal yous out there!  You can easily pick up an inexpensive piece of "art" at a thrift store or yard sale and use it to do the same thing.  Also, if you do not have the pre-made words like these, try painting them or stenciling them to the piece of "art" you picked up from the thrift store or the yard sale!

I love frugal!!!!  Happy decorating!