Bright idea

When I have a little extra time I love thrifting! Unfortunately my "best" finds are when I'm out of town. So I have to merge a Goodwill/thrifting trip with my monthly Target/Publix/Aldi trip... which makes for a pretty exhausting day.

Back in July/August I came across a lamp at Goodwill. I loved the curves, loathed the brass. After a quick test to make sure it worked in the store, I bought it for $4. I knew it had a future somewhere in our home, but I wasn't sure where.
It crossed my mind to paint it red and put it in Luke's room- but we really don't need any other light in there (we use the overhead one and a small table one at night for reading/winding down).

So I stuck it in the attic in my project box, hoping to use it someday. September gave us a +pregnancy test and the excitement of getting to work on a nursery again. But we didn't find out what we were having until December- so the lamp sat.

Of course I did my fair share of Pinning in the meantime and came across some "to die for" lamps. Here was some inspiration:
After the whole nursery came together, I decided to put the side table next to the futon and introduce the lamp to its new home. Since the walls were already painted gray, painting the lamp pink was the pretty clear choice. I toyed with painting it white and having a pink shade; but there is just something so girly about a pink curvy lamp!
I picked up the white shade at IKEA- it was maybe $10?

I've said it before and I'll say it again- Rust-Oleum's spray paint is the best stuff ever. The selection of Krylon colors in our local stores are SUPER tempting, but Rust-Oleum's coverage can't be beat. And with a little extra work (and a few more dollars) you can find just as many beautiful R-O colors.

I keep a "cheat sheet" of R-O's colors in my home binder. I picked up the pamphlet at our local Home Depot- they only carry 5-6 colors but R-O makes 55-60 colors. I have used the pamphlet twice to color match whatever accent color I'm trying to pull in the room and then I order the paint from Amazon. Amazon's prices are comparable to buying it in the store.


I used the Key Lime for our baskets over our laundry room cabinets. This time I ordered the Gloss Candy Pink. Once again it did NOT disappoint!
I mentioned that I grabbed the shade at IKEA for $10. I knew I wanted to make the shade a "ruffle" shade, so I kept my eyes out at thrift stores for a plain white sheet that I planned to cut up and repurpose. I ended up finding curtains that served the same purpose. Total spent? $1.
I started off by cutting the curtain (there were 2 of them) into 4 inch strips.
It really helped that the edges were already hemmed! It saved me some major time by working with what I had.
Next I sewed a casing. Basically I sewed the strips together (wrong sides facing each other).
I ended up with 12 long "tubes" of white curtain.
I flipped them inside out so the right side of the material was facing out.

Next with the hem centered on the back of the tube, I ran a "basting" stitch (or gathering stitch) down the middle of the tube. This way there were no rough edges and my original hem was hidden on the back. This is a picture of the back- if you look closely you can see 2 lines (the hem and the basting).
Pulling the thread carefully I began to gather. If you don't know how to gather it is seriously like the easiest thing ever. Look it up on youtube! And the results are pretty dramatic!
I gathered most of the tubes before I ever started attaching it to the shade. Here was the shade waiting for her makeover:
I started hot gluing the ruffles on the shade where the shade came together. I figured this part would be in the back.  This picture shows what happened when I finished one tube and had to start another without making it too obvious. I rolled over/glued the next tube to make it seamless.
It took some playing with the gathers to make sure one side wasn't over gathered/undergathered. Once I got going it went pretty fast.
I used tiny dots of hot glue along the way.
I would get going really fast and then run out of material... stop to get a new row going, and continue on. It took 7 "tubes" to finish. I was thrilled when I got to the end and the tube was the perfect length!
And here she is on the nightstand- all pink and girly!
Oh- and I can't wait to get my paws on that $20 thrift store side table! Oh the possibilities!
Luke liked how it felt :)
I'm not really sure how I'm going to clean it when it gets dusty? Maybe with a vacuum attachment? I'll cross that bridge later- for now I'm going to enjoy it!

Oh and for a price breakdown:
Lamp: $4
Shade: $10
Spray paint (which I used maybe 1/3 of the bottle): $9
Curtain: $1
Thread/hot glue: already owned
Total: $24!
Time spent: around 3 hours (1 hour one night, and 2 hours the next afternoon)

As a comparison- a quick google search brought up this shade from Pottery Barn:

The shade alone is $49!

And here's a bubble lamp for $59:

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