DIY Lamp shade makeover - block printing!

Hello! I finally bit the bullet and tried my hand at block printing!

It's a craft I have been admiring for several months now and have seen some amazing projects transformed through this unique skill. There are several more block printing projects on my list, (including recovering some dining chairs for the next Chelsea's Garage sale!), but I thought I would break the ice with our bedroom lamps!

Our lamps have looked like this for about 2 years and I have really enjoyed them!

After seeing a lamp decorated like this at Lucketts Antiques in Leesburg, VA, I couldn't wait to try it on our bedroom shades. I just tied a strip of burlap around the entire shade and knotted it with a strip of white linen and silvery tulle. It's been a nice little 'Country Living' touch in our bedroom....but I've been over it for a little while and ready for a change. 

Our shades, stripped of their burlap band, ready for their makeover. As you can see our room is very light and airy....and also full of solids. While our bed does have lots of different fabrics and textures, it is still solid white. Our walls are solid, lamp shades are solid - we need some print!

I definitely have wanted to add a punch of black in our bedroom and this seemed like a good opportunity to do so. I love seeing little black accents in even the lightest of rooms. I found these shades online to be inspiring!

Euro Style Lighting

Kaboodle

Euro Style Lighting

Target, Room Essentials

Lamps Plus

Mysoti

After looking around I realized I was not drawn as much to the precise prints. I don't like perfection in my home. I like things just a little 'off'. Clean, precise lines are not for me. I really like the faded look, as in the last shade by Mysoti.

Our bedroom is soft and calming to me and I didn't want to have anything too harsh by my head at night :) Just something different, interesting, and a little imperfect. I started this project with no exact idea in my head of what I wanted our shades to look like. It was one of those moments where I just threw caution to the wind and started applying paint on our lamp shades without a care in the world. And boy, was it fun! 

Supplies:

-Lamp shades

-Black paint, (I used Craftsman acrylic paint from Michaels that I had on hand)

-Paper plate to make a puddle of paint for dipping your object in

-Any cool designed object you want! I have a pile of tin cookie cutters and used the inside and outside of the diamond shape one. You can use regular ink stamps, stencils, whatever your heart desires

Step 1:

Pour a 'glop' of paint on your plate and then swirl it around so it makes a good size 'puddle', (you don't want it too thick and you want the paint evenly spread out). Then evenly coat your design object, (in my case, the diamond cookie cutter)

Step 2:

Firmly press your design onto your project. Reapply paint after each press...If you are using an object with more surface area than, say, a cookie cutter, make sure you remove a bit of paint before applying to your project so it's not too thick, runny or clumpy.

After finishing this overall diamond design on one shade, I stood back and looked at it, even stuck it back on in our bedroom. After just a couple minutes I decided it needed more...

So I went back over with the inside of the diamond cookie cutter, which is a smaller diamond shape.

...Ah, yes. Much better :)

Definitely not over the top or bold in any way. But the overall pattern is just the touch I was looking for in our bedroom. It was the easiest project ever and one I am excited to try again soon on some other things!

Thank you for reading! Stay tuned for a super fun giveaway coming up soon :) I can't wait!

~Chelsea

This post was originally published on Chelsea's Garage, now affectionately known as StyleMutt!

Paper wreath tutorial

Hi friends! What an interesting last few days we have had at our house! Starting last Wednesday night every person in my family, (myself included), caught some sort of bug/flu over the following 5 days. Yuck! Then, overlapping the flu, we were hit with hurricane Sandy! We are very fortunate to have absolutely zero effects from the storm on our home or property. Every time I flip on a light, take a shower, feel the warmth of the heat, or simply zap something in the microwave, I am so grateful that the Lord protected us. There are many who have suffered/are suffering from this great storm and my thoughts and prayers go out to them.

While we have been counting our many blessings, we have also been looking for things to pass the time inside as we haven't left the house in 5 days! The kids have reaped the benefits of my cabin fever as I have bent some rules just to keep things interesting. I piled our main floor furniture against the walls and on top of the dining table and brought their bikes inside so they could race around like a mini biker gang. We've taken apart our basement sectional to make a massive fort! I took real food down to the kids play kitchen that they got for their birthday so they could pretend they were actually cooking and serving, (a mess that I fully anticipated, enjoyed in the moment, and hated cleaning up). Yes, the kids have been busy and quite enjoying themselves!

To relieve my own cabin fever, I decided to make a paper wreath during the kids' nap time yesterday!

This wreath will be donated for a silent auction that will benefit a fantastic cause supporting education for underprivileged kids in Washington D.C., (please see info here - totally worth a few seconds to check out). It's the second wreath I've made like this but the first time I've photographed the process so you can try it yourselves!

Supplies:

-2 books of slightly different colored pages for a bit of contrast in your wreath

-Stapler

-Craft glue

-Black paint & small brush

-13"-14" foam wreath frame

Step 1:

Paint the outside of the pages of your books black. This will give each individual page of your wreath a little punch so you can see the contrast

Step 2:

Tear out pages one by one and shape into a cone. Staple the ends. I make the outer edge of cones on the wreath like this....

...then I make all the other 'layers' of cones in the wreath like this, with a double fold at the bottom of the cone.

Step 3:

Drag a strip of glue across the bottom of your cone

Step 4:

Stick the cone on your wreath frame, tucking in each cone one next to the other, working from the outside of your frame towards the inside. When you are starting a new 'layer', make sure you are tucking the cones in close to the previous layer so you don't have bare spots.

*As you work your way in, your cones will start facing the inside of the frame, as you can see in this picture. Once it looks like you can no longer see much green of the frame, do one final layer just as you have been doing, but face the cones outward. I tried to get a couple pics of what I'm talking about...look at the inside of this wreath - you can see how the very inside cones are facing out, and the layer of cones above them are facing in.

Your beautiful final product!

This is one of my absolutely favorite DIY projects. I got my books at a thrift store for pennies a piece, the black paint and glue I already had here at home, (but you can purchase them at Michaels for just a few bucks), and the wreath frame was around $10 at JoAnns Fabrics, (they are a few bucks more at Michaels, around $13, I think). So it's a very inexpensive project that looks like a million bucks when it's finished! Well, maybe not a million...but definitely classy and elegant, (in my opinion).

Have you done any fun projects from home recently? Or seen any cool ones you'd like to try?

~Chelsea

This post was originally published on Chelsea's Garage, now affectionately known as StyleMutt!

Window turned headboard - DIY

*Shire's room looks entirely different now, (the only thing that's the same is today's DIY headboard). You can find updated photos on our SPACES page!*

Hi all! Busy day and weekend ahead - Colin and Shire are turning 3 in a few days and we want to make their big day as special as possible! Before I head out for the day I just thought I would drop in really quick to give you the low down on the windowed headboard I made for Shire's room!

First, these old windows are a dime a dozen! You can find them at pretty much any antique store for a few bucks. Also look on the side of the road :) I often see them by peoples trash cans! This one, in particular, was perfect for this project because of it's dimensions. I have several other windows in the garage, but none that are rectangular, (though square would do just fine, too).

I have tons of scrap fabric in my home from all kinds of things. I played around with some different fabrics behind the glass and decided to just stick to fabric that I was using elsewhere in her room, to kind of tie them all together. Once I decided on my fabrics and where each one would go behind the glass, I just layed them out, one at a time, over each individual pane, and staple-gunned them along the wooden edges. After I stapled one fabric on, I would trim the edges close to the staples, and then do the next fabric. I didn't bother trying to cut the fabric to size before doing the stapling, especially because I knew I would be doing a lot of pulling to get the fabric tight.

I picked up a couple large size sawtooth hooks, nailed them along the back top edge of the window, and hung the finished product a few inches above the bed.

Thank you for stopping by!

~Chelsea

This post was originally published on Chelsea's Garage, now affectionately known as StyleMutt!