DIY (Ikea) Tulle Lampshade....

 

I saw this super-cute lamp in my Ikea catalog. I really wanted it. It was such a neat looking lamp. Then I saw the price tag. $99.00. Dang. I don't think I've ever paid more than $10 for a lamp. It was a good thought.

 

 

Then I had an even better idea. I found a couple lamp shades at the last DownEast  sale. I took all the paper off of it and grabbed the tulle I had in my craft stash.

 

I began by cutting the tulle into 2-ft pieces. I cut the tulle so that it was enough to tie around the top with excess and to tie/glue at the bottom of the lamp shade with excess as well.

Once the pieces were cut, I combined four pieces together and then tied them at the top of the lamp- four to each "side" and then a group of eight pieces of tulle around each of the wires going down the side.

 As you can see- I have quite a bit of excess tulle. With one end of the tulle tied at the top, I let the rest flow down, in preparation for gluing to the lamp shade form.

 

 I tied the corner tulle (covering the additional form wires)  to keep it out of the way- it's purple mainly to differentiate the parts.

I pulled the tulle in sections (there were four- one for each side of the form) one-at-a-time through the center of the lamp shade form. I hot glued the INSIDE of the form first and laid the tulle flat against it- as neatly as possible. When that cooled I glued the OTHER side of the form and pulled/wrapped the tulle around that. This allowed the tulle to flare out to the sides of the lamp shade.

After I glued it all, I trimmed the bottom tulle so that it was approx. 3 inches long.

Here's the lamp with a trimmed bottom and untrimmed top/

Then I cropped the top. I cut the tulle down to match the length of the bottom.

Using the extra tulle that I had been trimming off I started to add more "poof" to the bottom half of the lamp.

I gathered approximately four-ish small pieces together. I folded them down, glued down the center (folded again, so the pieces were all glued together) and then glued this filler piece to the underside of the lamp.

It looked like this:

 I just repeated what I had done with the first tulle - just smaller 'chunks'.

After I added what I wanted I turned it over and trimmed it down {again}.

I really am pleased with the way it turned out. I must say that I really thought this was going to be a craft FAIL. So, my total for this lovely little lamp? Tulle: $7.00, Lamp: $3.50, Lamp Shade $1.50. Total {ish} $12.00! Far cry from $99.00- so I'm pretty happy about it.

Check out the AMAZING spray paint tutorials submitted this week over at MMMblog!

Just US...thanking YOU.

This picture was taken at Ikea- one of the few trips we've taken to do "fun" stuff. It's currently the best picture we have of the two of us together. Both showered. ;)

I wanted to take a minute to tell you...{because you're reading this} "Thank you". Courtney and I started this amazing journey together with the desire to be creative, to build relationships and to allow us greater control of our own lives.

Mindy Mae's Market has brought all of this into our lives because of YOU. I want you to know that we watch your status updates on Facebook. We celebrate with you and discuss your vents and concerns that you've shared.  We stalk your blogs. We talk about your darling posts and about the ways that you have become endearing to us. We love to see you "take the next step" and branch out. We "awww" and coo over the pictures you post of your babies...human or otherwise. ;)We check out how your giveaways are going (and enter...with hopes of winning). We oggle your projects and make plans to do them, too. We talk about how we can grow with you...how we might be able to help...ways we wish we could help.

 

Thank you for sharing with us. Thanks for letting our relationships be more than bubble mailers and postage stickers. We appreciate you. We appreciate you investing in us. We want you to know that we try hard. Every. Single. Day. 

 

We will continue to. That's what you do for people that you care about. :)