Theme 24: Flowers (on a lamp)

 This project has been in my head for quite a few years now. I saw this outstanding lamp at my aunts house, I can’t even remember when it was, it’s THAT long ago! She got inspired by this beautiful creation but thought it was a bit expensive (and creatable). I might have a picture of her lamp somewhere… Yes! And now my lamp feels scrawny, have to feed it with a few more strings of flowers, or well, my lampshade is a bit smaller so it might look weird. I will look into it when I actually have space for it. Until then, here’s a short DIY for you (and the pics from my aunt’s version, I love the light it gives)!

What you need:

  • imagea lampshade, with or without fabric
  • vlieseline, same amount as the fabric you choose. Not sure how much I used to be honest but the size of your flowers matters so just go for something and purchase more if needed
  • cotton fabric of any desired color, white might look best if you only can find white vlieseline
  • a few meters of fishing line or any other discrete and strong thread available
  • floor protectors, I went to IKEA and got a few packages of FIXA. Floor protectors anyone?
  • a pair of sharp scissors. You will cut a lot unless you have some other nifty way to cut out the flowers (I was clever enough to use my Sizzix Big Shot, I honestly think this project still would be unfinished without it)
  • some sort of flower template unless you want to draw every single one by hand, might be fun too!
  • iron and an ironing board

imageNot sure if my methods are the best for this, but since I was going to cut the flowers with my Big Shot I sort of had to cut pieces of the fabric, the die I got included four different styles of flowers which I didn’t want so this step might be unnecessary for some.

Anyhow, start of by ironing the vlieseline on the fabric and make sure it’s stuck. I kept my iron on a lower temperature while cutting out the squares just in case I missed a spot or two.
I cut out a template flower as a help for measuring out how large squares I needed. I ended up with 99 pieces. So happy I decided not to cut them out by hand.
Next I used my Big Shot with a Tim Holtz die named Tattered Florals. It went surprisingly well cutting fabric with the die, I was a bit unsure (first time I used the Big Shot too, everything was scary).
image
With all flowers cut out the next step is the fun part, assembling everything somehow!
I started with tying a few pieces (quite long ones, wasn’t sure how long I wanted my lamp to be) of the fishing line on the lamp shade and then I simply took one flower and one floor protector and put the line between. The glue on the floor protectors impressed me, had to be a bit careful when putting it all together, I’m a perfectionist so it had to be placed in the middle, or at least somewhat close to it.
Here’s a few pictures of the current result, I do like the scrawniness somewhat. I might add a few smaller flowers perhaps. I have to see what it looks like with a light bulb in.

image   image

I might have chosen smaller flowers to match my tiny lamp shade better. Oh well, there’s always a next time!