Wednesday, July 18, 2012

wax paper+old lamp shade+nap time=

So I am finally actually doing stuff for my house.
I made this chandelier. 
It took three nap times total (about 6 hours?) Its super easy.
I remember when Susan posted her tutorial, and I thought "I am so doing this".
I did a lazy-girl version though.
And I was really bad at taking pictures to document this adventure...so bare with me and my crappy phone-pictures.
 (next on my to do list: curtains, paint and reupholster chairs, hang pictures, paint walls....it's a very slow work in progress, folks.)

 Materials needed:

  • 1-2 rolls of wax paper
  • couple sheets of parchment paper
  • old lamp shade 
  • sewing machine+white thread
  • iron
Steps taken:
  1. first you take three sheets of wax paper and iron them together. So I cut two feet pieces, stacked them on top of each other, and sandwiched them between the parchment paper (so the wax wont melt all over you iron) and smoothed my iron over the whole thing. Takes about two seconds. do this for the whole roll.
  2. Then, here's where I turned Susan's tutorial into my lazy-girl version: I just stacked up my sheets of ironed wax paper, and used my rotary cutter and just cut un-even strips about 2-3 inches in width, and then cut those strips into little squares, about 2-3 inches. Each square is a different shape and size.
  3. After everything is all cut, you simply feed them through your sewing machine, one after another. Test it out to see how long you want it. I sewed 16 squares/strip for my top level, and 12-14 for my lower level.  Yours will be different depending on the shape/size of your lamp shade and where you want to put it in your house.
  4. Finally drape the sewn strips over the upside-down lamp shade (no need to glue or tape, they stay put)


Seriously took me three nap times.
one nap time for the ironing, one for the cutting, and yesterday I sewed it all.

1 comment:

Carly said...

Love it! I have been wanting to do this but I have a good circle punch I think I'll use so it looks like those faux shell ones I'm seein' on pinterest. Super cute Rachel!! Go you :)