Marsha Mpressions

Star-Struck Tutorial

About that star-struck lamp in my last post, here’s how it came to be.  You can see its home here.

 I wanted a lamp to compliment my theme, but didn't want to buy one and, truthfully, it would have been hard to find the perfect lamp anyway. 

So for starters, I bought an inexpensive lamp base from Target.

 

 

 

 

I had a used discarded lampshade in the attic.  I’m a packrat when it comes to things that might have another life.  I just can’t bring myself to throw them away and in this case I was glad.

Next I rolled my shade around the fabric I chose to use as my lamp-cover. 

I then marked the fabric, laid it flat and cut it out. 

I did cut the fabric about 1/4 inch wider than my shade.  Better to be too large than too small.  You can always trim the fabric after it’s attached to the shade.

The next step was to spray the shade with adhesive glue.  Carefully wrap the fabric around the shade, smoothing out the wrinkles.

I wanted a ruffle on my shade so I cut a strip of denim about 4 1/2 inches wide and double the length around the shade.  I folded the strip lengthwise and I ran a gathering stitch through the top long length of the strip.  (To run a gathering stitch, widen your sewing machine stitch to the widest setting.)

Gently pull your gathering stitch to the desired length and glue on to the bottom of your shade with a glue gun.

I also used a glue gun to add trim to the top of my shade and at the top of the ruffle.

 

 

Lastly, I cut a star out of denim with pinking shears and glued to the face of the shade.

Why stop now, I thought.  So I made a pillow to match the lampshade. 

I laid stencils on my pillow-top and taped them in place to stencil my desired letters.

And here’s the result.

I’m sharing my humble post today with lots of talented DIYers at DIY Day at  Kimba’s A Soft Place to Land.