I found a old lamp shade and ripped off the old covering, leaving just the wire part.
And I started picking up crochet lace doilies whenever I saw them at yard sales and thrift stores. I also looked on Etsy and eBay for doilies, but they were so expensive! I didn't want to pay three or four dollars for one doily. Plus shipping. I wanted to pay a quarter, of fifty cents. So I bided my time, and paid the fifty cents. I've collected enough to make several lamp shades. This is just my first try.
I used doilies of every shape and shade of white. I clothes pinned the first set onto the top ring of the lamp shade frame, and sewed them all around. Then I pinned others along the bottom to fill in gaps, and sewed them in place as well. It takes a while, because you have to put stitches in just so with crochet lace, but it is a worth it for the lovely end result! I must say, at night time, the light shining through the lace is a romantic effect.
For right now I put this shade over the milk glass shade of my antique floor lamp next to my desk. My plan is to find the perfect lamp to pair it with. Eventually. Here's a couple angles of it:
Here is something I picked up yesterday:
1920s - 30s. Cons: damage to the veneer on the top, pukey colored paint on the inside of the shelves, cracked front glass, tacky metal knobs, funny little swirly rack thingy attached on to one of the shelves, pretty bad scar about 8 inches long on the other side in the veneer.
Pros: It was pretty inexpensive. Most of the wood is in pretty good condition. Sturdy as all get out.
I have two ideas on this piece:
1. Restore it to a nice condition on t he outside, replace the glass, re paint the inside some other color besides "puke", replace knobs, and sell it.
2. Paint it, distress it, remove the glass, replace the glass with decorative "chicken" wire, and call it a "pie safe". Oh yeah, and replace the knobs. Then possibly keep it and use it in my kitchen, or maybe sell it.
Not sure what I want to do. Ideas? Opinions?
5 comments:
I want to make a battenburg lace lamp for my room this winter. With all the holes in the doilies is the light too bright?
#2 I've been wanting to put chicken wire in a cabinet like that. I will as soon as I find one with a broken glass. Please do the second choice - I'd love to see it.
BTW I'm collecting doilies right now to do a lampshade in my office. I think I might cover the wire shade with chicken wire, spray it all white and then stitch the doilies onto the chicken wire. J
Catherine - It is placed over a milk glass shade already - so I really tested it but itself yet.I think it would be ok, as long as you have a low wattage light bulb in your lamp to begin with. Also, the more you layer or overlap the doilies, the more the light will be shaded.
Julie - I am still torn! I like the chicken wire look also, and have wanted to try that. I was kidn of hoping for a piece with double doors, though... I have to take what I can find, however. :)
I meant to say - I haven't tested it out yet, by itself on a lamp. I don't know what happened to all the words in my comment above! Blogger "scramble"? lol
It's going to look beautiful with all the light shining through it in the evenings. I love lamplight.
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