Ever since I bought this lamp from T K Maxx about 2 years ago there’s been something about which I thought was just not quite right. When I met up with a friend charity shopping the other weekend and saw some very good value lamp shades it hit me that this was the problem with the lamp. It was a black lampshade when I bought it and it was just far too oppressive. So I bought a 99p shade from the charity shop in order to try it out when I got home and when I did I could see it was too short a design for the stand but the lighter colour made a huge difference. So that was it….. it was time for a bit of upcycling magic….
So I actually ripped off the black fabric, as I knew I wanted to get rid of that before I had thought what fabric I had to replace it. But I knew I had a good frame to work with then. I had a think and thought – napkins, I have lots of napkins, and sure enough I had 3 sandy coloured ones which I didn’t necessarily use on a regular basis, so that was my background fabric. I stitched 3 together and then wrapped round the frame and did a simple running stitch in orange and red thread (both sourced from free hotel sewing kits) and down the joining hem.
Then I opened up my ribbon box (something that every home should have) of collected ribbons I have had on gifts, and cheap craft ribbon and also, and this is what I ended up using in this case, cotton ribbon which is used to keep a new set of tea towels together when you buy them from store. I also had a small piece of wide and wired florist ribbon which I must have got off a gift at some point and thought might come in and I played around with these two things and managed to make a very authentic looking bow, which I must say I am dead chuffed with. I finished this bit up at a new knit and natter group which I have joined at work, it’s so lovely to hang out with like-minded people doing such a variety of crafting products which brings something homemade into their homes.
