A FANTASTIC FANDELIER, POUR UNE PETITE FILLE

NESTING THE NURSERY, POUR UNE PETITE FILLE (PHASE II) {DECOR AND ACCESSORIES}   A FANTASTIC FANDELIER   Accessorizing your little one's nursery is the best time to help your theme come to life! Some examples of items you can use to tie your theme together are bedding, wall art, curtains, rugs, pillows, and lighting fixtures. All of these can help pull a room together to give it a harmonious look. The nice part about accessories is they can be replaced easily later on without doing any major work to the room. Remember my son's "Transported" Little Boys Room. This is the exact method I used!
Creating your own accessories is a great way to add customization to your little one's space! If you are not super crafty, but would like to add something unique and special, your local craft stores carry unfinished tables, toy chests, boxes, shelves, frames, and other items that you can paint to match your theme. This is a fun and inexpensive way to add your own personal touch!   I have a few different ways that I am adding personal touches to my Little Girls Room. Today I want to share with you a Fantastic Fandelier I made.   

  My theme for her room is going to be a Parisian/Air Balloon theme, however I am trying not to go crazy with the ole' Eiffel Tower (if you know what I mean)! I want more of an elegant and understated theme. I am using greys, browns, creams, whites and antique pinks. I want to use traditional patterns of lace and toile but in a more modern fashion. One of the ways I am pulling in my theme is through the light fixture. 
This is what the lamp shade looked like before. You may remember it from another project I did called "Lighten Up!" where I transformed an old lamp. I did not use the lamp shade from that project but I did keep it. I knew I would find a good use for it again one day!  

  The scalloped edges and the sheer size of this shade is what I fell in love with!    Now, when I started this project, I really wasn't sure what I was going to do. I literally winged the whole thing. I will share my triumphs and my huge failures on the way to making this Fantastic Fandelier. This just goes to show you that sometimes going with the flow is the next best thing to a well laid plan! At least, that is what I kept telling myself through out the process and how I felt in the end! Ha Ha   I started out by wanting to use lace. I actually bought some lace at The Goodwill and tried overlaying it, but it looked awful. My grandmother would have even disapproved! I found this great tutorial from One Pearl Button on how to use a doily as a stencil. I loved the look and decided this is the techinique I would use. I went to the craft store and purchased paper doilies in the cake section, big enough that I knew they would fit my lamp. I ended up cutting out my own design and taping it to my lamp shade using drafting tape. Painters tape would have worked too. Something sticky, but would not ruin the fabric shade or destroy my delicate paper template!

Alli, from One Pearl Button, used a sharpie in her tutorial, but I could not find a sharpie in my color pallet. So I used what I had on hand. A Prisma Color Marker, warm grey 40%. I used these markers all through college. They are permanent and allow you to layer on the color to achieve the desired look.   

  I started by very gently coloring in the holes of the paper. (Yes, this project took some time and patience! Thank goodness for nap times and bed times!) Once I did one layer of color. I removed my stencil and free handed another layer on-top of it. This way, I already had the pattern drawn and was able to make it a little darker with out pushing too hard on the fabric. I did not want it to stretch!! I also wanted to give the illusion of lace and this technique proved to work well!

I continued this process on every other panel around my lamp shade. Next I wanted a graphic in on the alternating panels of the shade! I found this great stamp on sale. Instead of stamping one color all over. I used paints I had that went with my color scheme and painted them on. You have to work fast because the paint will dry to the stamp. (Unlike stamp pad ink which takes a while to dry!) 

I tested a couple of samples on paper to see how saturated the stamp was. Once I was comfortable with the amount of paint, I held my breath and stamped my fabric lamp shade, not knowing how it was going to look since paper and fabric take paint differently. Well, let's just say this is not what I had in mind! It came out way too light. I thought I would stamp it again. Ha Ha. That's not double vision you have, that is me, failing to align it up. OK! Onto a new plan!

I looked at all my left over cake doilies (they came in a pack of 10 and I ended up making my stencil out of 1 of them). I decided I would stamp them, not knowing how I was going to adhere them to the lamp shade. At least I knew the stamp would be much more legible on the paper!

Now what? I know...I'll Mod Podge these suckers on. You can Mod Podge anything! Right!?! I decided to cut them out, and add a little water around the edges to give them a torn look. This was going to be awesome!! Don't they look great? Problem Solved!

Now I just had to Mod Podge them on!

Oh wait. Maybe I should have keep the Mod Podge to a minimum around the edges. Oh well, It will dry right? Wrong!!! Fabric is a whole other animal. The Mod Podge did dry, but it soaked into the inner lining of the lamp shade and created this awful....I don't know what to call it? Stuck together puckered look! If this is how it looked with day light showing through it, imagine how bad it looked with a light shining through it.

OK, put the project down, walk away. THINK!! Positive; the graphic is on the lamp shade, Negative; It looks like poo poo! Solution; I came to the conclusion that it looked like this because the back lining was also being stuck to it. So what's the solution? Remove the inside lining. So that is what I did. I cut out the inside lining on only the panels with the graphic stuck to it. This made the graphic look much much better! Yea, Fixed. New Problem!! The inside looks horrible!

Seriously, shouldn't I just go buy a lamp shade by now. Well, at this point I had so much invested in it I decided to keep going! It was almost finished! I just needed it to look more polished. Put it down, walk away! THINK, THINK, THINK!  Positive; I liked the way the light shown differently through the panels with the backing and without! Negative; the edges looks tattered and sloppy and I will freak out every time I look up into this lamp! Solution; Fix the seams! So I made yet, another trip to the craft store and purchased two types of ribbon, a grey sating and a really cool looking lace. I used super duty craft glue to glue down the grey ribbon first. It was already looking much better!

Once that was all glued and secured. I thought the contrast was a little to much, so I overlayed the lace ribbon on top of the grey. This made it look even better. It was much more subtle and gave a nice polished finish to the inside of the lamp shade while, I might add, some great detail to the inside of the shade!

Now we are getting somewhere! The graphic was looking much better but I still felt it needed a finishing touch. With one last trip back to the craft store. Yes, this is like trip number 5 or whatever, but who's counting. I purchased some great craft paper that matches my antique pink exactly. I used an oval template and cut out frames to adhere to my graphic. I did used Mod Podge again, but stayed in-between the lines. 

I added my fabulous beaded trim to the top and bottom of the shade to finish the edge detailing. Created some custom tassel pulls and by George......I have a Fantastic Fandelier!! (A pseudo chandelier that attaches to the fan! ;) You have to have fans in your rooms here in Arizona, it's just too hot!)

Can you believe it! Here she is....in all her glory. Now most people will walk into this room and think, awww thats cute, but.....YOU...my readers will have a much deeper appreciation (as do I) for this Fantastic Fandelier!!  

 

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* Mad in Crafts * Keeping It Simple * Sumo's Sweet Stuff * C.R.A.F.T. *  Alderberry Hill *  DIY Home Sweet Home  *  An Original Belle * Le Chateau des Fleurs *Destination: Craft * I should be mopping the floor * Nifty Thrifty Things * It's So Very Cheri *  Under The Table and Dreaming * The DIY Showoff * Brassy Apple * Twigg Studios * Nutmeg Place * Natasha in Oz * Sweet Anne Designs * My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia * Kampen Lane * Full Circle Creations * Home Stories A to Z  * PJH Designs  *A Diamond in the Stuff  * Blackberry Vine *I Gotta Create * A Bowl Full of Lemons * Kammys Korner * Adventures of a DIY Mom  * In The Old Road * Uncommon * The Well Crafted Home * DIY by Design *  Natural Nester  *Snap * Lil Luna  * Practically Functional * My Girlish Whims * Restore Interiors * Live Laugh Rowe * The Shabby Creek Cottage * Made in A Day * Someday Crafts *  At The Picket Fence * Chic on a Shoestring * Craftionary * French Country Cottage * Funky Junk Interiors * Its Overflowing * 504 Main * Redoux Interiors * Addicted 2 Decorating * Whipperberry * Tatertots and Jello * Thirty Handmade Days * Craft Junkie Too * The Shabby Nest * Liz Marie * Bacon Time with the Hungry Hypo

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