Saturday, March 16, 2013

Doing Up the Lovely Lady

Thanks for all your comments regarding my Lack corner shelf tutorial, and a welcome to readers who are stopping by from Curbly!  #6 on Faith Towers Ten Clever Ikea Hacks, thanks Faith!

Remember my Lovely Lady Lamp from last summer?


She got a lovely coat of bright yellow spray paint and a new black shade.

Something always looked a bit off though, like something was missing.  I decided if the Lady was to be Lovely, she need a fancier dress...aka shade.

I wanted to do some kind of ribbon trim of varying widths.  I couldn't decide on the colour, but thought silver could look nice.  It would stand out well on the black, and would match my stools and Bert in the kitchen.  So I went on the hunt for silver ribbon.  This hunt lasted MONTHS.  Every time I went to the Dollar Store or Walmart or anywhere that sold ribbon I scoured their selection for the same silver colour in different sizes.  I had pretty much given up when last week, I found skinny silver ribbon...and in the junk box wayyyy at the back of the shelf there was matching silver ribbon in the thicker size.  I nearly died.  I may have immediately called my mom and squealed my delight.  I bought both.

I wasn't sure how to attach the ribbon to the shade.  It's a satin ribbon and I didn't want the glue to show through.  I did some research, and everyone said not to use a glue gun.  Good, cause that had been my first idea... Others had had success with fabric glue applied thinly with a paint brush.  I went with this.  I picked up some fabric glue and away I went.



Long story short, fabric glue did not work!  Even with the thinnest coat, the ribbon still bunched and you could see where the glue had been applied and where it hadn't.  I have no photo of the badness because I didn't want the glue to dry too much before I ripped the ribbon off.  Sorry...just picture bunchy, wet ribbon stuck to a lampshade and you've got the right visual.

I decided to test with tape.  That worked, but you could see where the tape was folded over under the ribbon.

My final idea was just to tape where the ribbon joined at the seam and then pull the ribbon taut around the shade without attaching it at all.  Surprisingly, it worked!  All that's holding the ribbon in place is some tape at the back on the seam.



I realize this is not a long term solution.  But really, if it falls down I just add a new piece of tape.  And it makes it super easy to change if I get tired of the silver!

Now the Lovely Lady is ready for a night on the town!



     

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave me your comments!! If you don't have a profile listed, choose Name/URL (you can leave the URL space blank, but please leave your name!) or you can choose anonymous :)