Lamp Reveal and "Tutorial"

Finally! I finished my lamp makeover. Whew! And not only is this her big reveal, but also my first real tutorial. Actually, it reads more like a play-by-play, since unless you have the same lamp, your steps might be slightly different, but you get the idea. Looky-look:

Before

After

Like I said before, the antique-y look of the lamps is nice, but a little dark and I wanted to change it up a bit. I used the lamps in my game room as inspiration.

Inspiration Lamp

Although the look of this lamp is a little bit too modern for me (they came with the living room set we have), I do secretly love them. The mirrored look and black shade are real clean, plus the mirrored look makes the lamp and space seem brighter, so I figured I could take that color scheme and apply it to my antique-y lamps. Even though our rooms aren't matchy-matchy, I do like to have one to two themes or color schemes carry through so that there is a cohesion throughout the house.

This project called for a variety of supplies, some of which I did not realize I needed until about halfway through the transformation. Here is what I started out with: Krylon Looking Glass spray paint, painter's tape, tack cloth, beads to replace the original ones, and jewelry pins to hang the beads from.

A word of advice on the spray paint: after traveling to several hardware and home improvement stores (thinking they would have the best spray paint selection and they did have huge amounts, but relatively small Krylon selection) I finally found the Krylon Looking Glass paint at Hobby Lobby. They seem to have the best selection of Krylon that I could find. The Looking Glass paint is much more costly than normal spray paint, and comes in a much smaller can, but you can use one of Hobby Lobby's weekly coupons (typically 40% off) to get it for a steal. My store will even let you just show the coupon on your smart phone, so I'm saving money and saving trees all at once - score! And no, I do not work for Krylon or Hobby Lobby, just passing on a good deal when I find it, and as far as I can tell, Krylon are the only ones making this cool paint I wanted to try!

I'll start at the beginning and you'll see why I realized I needed more supplies at the same time I did. First, obviously, I unplugged the lamp, then removed the shade, shade hardware and light bulb. Next, I covered the part where the light bulb screws in and the cord in painter's tape. In hindsight, I could have probably figured out how to remove the brown cording and replace it with black, but that's not too important to me, nor am I really interested in working with electricity, so I'll let that little detail go...

Now, the whole reason I picked out this lamp years ago was because I liked the orange crystals. But years of moves have left several missing, as you can see, so at this point I went ahead and removed the crystals and the rings holding them. I put them aside, guessing I can use them on another project since there aren't enough to salvage for this one. Before I can paint, I rub the whole thing down with tack cloth to get off any dust or residue hanging around. I have no idea what this lamp is actually made of, so I figured that'd be a safe bet without eating away at anything important. You can pick up tack cloth in the paint section of a home improvement store for a few bucks a pack.

And now it's time to paint! I guess since, technically, this paint is supposed to be used on glass, it's very thin and runny. It took 2-3 thin coats on each side to get the desired effect. You'll want to work with it like any other spray paint, using quick, sweeping sprays. I started with the lamp laying on its side, so less of it would run off, thus somewhat eliminating streaks. After all sides dried and had been coated a few times, I stood the lamp up and touched up any streaks or runs with a quick spray. Luckily, it dries pretty quick, so the multiple coats were no big deal. Again, like with any other spray paint, make sure to use in a ventilated area, and cover the surrounding area to prevent overspray issues.

With the lamp painted, I turned my attention to the beads. Here's where I started to run into problems. I couldn't find any beads with a hole horizontally through the tops like the original orange crystals (a little blurry, but hopefully you see what I mean):

I had no choice but to settle for beads from the jewelry making section of the store with one hole, running vertically through it, which is why I got the pins. I figured I'd thread the beads on, and twist the top somehow, either hooking it to the original rings or through the holes in the lamp. This was a good idea, in theory, until I realized the holes in the beads were so big that the pin heads went right on through them. Back to Hobby Lobby I went, in search of tiny black beads, small enough to be a buffer between the pin head and the larger beads with larger holes. And here you have extra supply number one:

On the little rescue beads went, followed by the black jewelry beads. I finished it off by first bending the pin into a sort of upside down "L" shape like this:

After I got this done, I just bent the top part back around counter-clockwise into a sort of question mark shape so I could loop it through the holes in the lamp. I alternated the larger, middle bead, with either solid black, or a transparent, smoke-colored one.

And now the rest of the extra supplies come into play. I couldn't find a lamp shade that I really liked, plus at $15-$20 a pop, I didn't want to settle for one. Again, wandering around Hobby Lobby I stumbled upon a solution to my dilemma. I found white, self-adhesive lamp shades! All you have to do is buy the fabric you want, and stick it to the lamp shade and voila! I instantly became a genius in my own mind.

I grabbed a small cylinder shaped self-adhesive lamp shade, and then a half yard of black burlap. The lampshade actually called for 5/8 yard, but I have no idea why, since I didn't even use up a quarter of what I bought. I used this week's 40% coupon on the shade, which was originally $7.99 and paid $1.99 for the burlap, so I'd say my little shade was a steal! And easy! All you do is peal off the white paper label, lay it over your fabric, and cut out the fabric, leaving about 1 inch grace on each side.

Self-adhesive lamp shade and burlap

Extra supplies: Gorilla super glue, hot glue and glue gun, small clamp, scissors

Trimming the fabric for the lampshade

I picked burlap for a few reasons. First, let's be honest, it's cheap. Second, I wanted a black shade, but didn't want to block too much light. And lastly, it's got a nice earthy texture to contrast with my looking glass lamp. Because I wanted the white to show through the black, I did one layer of the burlap. Since burlap has a gridded texture, I had to make sure to wrap it evenly.

After your fabric is wrapped around, just fold the remaining edge in on itself and glue, using either super glue or a glue gun. I used super glue for this part since I wanted a really good hold on the outer seam, and have a teeny tiny clamp I can use. Also because I really enjoy Gorilla Glue and use it whenever possible. Seriously, the handle on my steam mop literally fell off one day and instead of buying a new one, I Gorilla Glued it back on, and it's still working like a champ. This stuff will hold anything, I'm pretty sure. I'm totally not a Gorilla Glue spokesperson, but I do have a small arsenal of it in the garage. Just in case. Back to the lampshade...just dab a little glue under the fold and clamp (or hold for a while).

The final step of the lampshade is just to tuck the edges to the back side, tacking down with glue as you go. I switched to a hot glue gun at this point because I was getting antsy and wanted to see the finished product. If you go this route, just be sure to pull off all the glue strings that accumulate. Do about an inch at a time so your glue doesn't dry before the fabric takes hold. Make sure to pull the fabric tight to avoid any wrinkles in your shade.

Now, all that's left to do is put the lampshade on, replace the bulb, turn on and check it out!

I really like how the paint turned out, allowing a little of its previous darker self to show through (or maybe it's the shadows...), and the way it reflects the light. I think the burlap was a perfect choice to achieve color and texture and still retain light.

Whew! I finished my first tutorial! Hopefully it was neither oversimplified nor overcomplicated. I've got plenty more ideas and projects looming in my future to share with you, which means plenty of opportunity to become a tutorial queen! Hope you enjoyed this and maybe it'll inspire your creativity! Oh, and if you're reading this, but not a follower, do me a favor and swing on over to the right side of the page and click "Join This Site" for me! Hurry up, I'll wait for you. Okay, thanks! And to show my gratitude for following me, I'll be adding more projects and recipes soon. I'm just getting started here.

I'm entering this tutorial in the DIY Project Party Monthly Contest over at The DIY Club! Visit their page http://thediyclub.com/ to check out really cool ideas, or enter the contest, too!

I am also sharing here at the Shine Your Light blog: