2010 January 17 | Beneath My Heart

I am so very excited about how this project turned out!

It’s exactly what I had envisioned in my head.

I bought some lamp shades from Target for the boys’ room a couple of years ago. They weren’t exactly what I was looking for, but they were the right size and shape, (and price).

They were covered with a tan paper that began to bubble. I tried to ignore it, but it was driving me crazy.

I began to think about how I could recover them…maybe with new material? blue? red? khaki?

And then it hit me….BURLAP, BABY!

If you don’t know about my obsession with burlap, just click on “burlap projects” in my side bar, and you’ll get a good idea.

I already had some leftover burlap, so I quickly got to work.

First I pulled the navy blue trim off of the lamp shade. That was super easy.

Then I took my burlap and wrapped it around the shade.

I covered each side of the shade with fabric glue and a sponge brush and pressed the burlap to the shade.

Then I let it dry.

I tucked the edge of the material under and secured it with my glue gun.

Press the seam down and it will lay nice and flat. Just be careful because the glue can seep through the holes of the burlap! Trust me…I know!

Then I trimmed the burlap around all of the edges with my scissors.

Next, I got out my trusty glue gun and glued the ribbon back on.

They were already looking sooooo good to me!

But it needed something else.

Sooooo.

I bought some stencils at Michael’s (with a coupon) for 4 bucks. Then I got out my sponge brush and the same paint that I used to paint the boys’ collector’s shelves. (Colonial Red)

The boys picked out a number that they wanted stenciled on their lamp shade, and I got to work.

I taped the stencil in place and applied the paint with my sponge brush.

Then I used a smaller paint brush to go over the edges of the numbers to make them more even.

They are perfect! To me, at least.

It was nighttime when I took the pictures of the lamp shades in the boys’ room, so I used my flash for some of them. ( I usually try not to do that, but in this case I thought some of the pictures turned out better with the flash.)

The boys are thrilled! They love having those lamps beside their beds to read at night.

If you want to learn how to make a collector’s shelf similar to the ones in the boys’ room, click HERE.

I bought the swing arm lamps at Goodwill for $2.50 a piece. They were an ugly brass, so I spray painted them with a metal spray paint from Lowe’s. It was called “hammered metal” or something like that. It was two years ago…