Lampshades

Bling it up!

I was recently asked to recover a traditional lampshade to go in an Art Deco living room. I just thought I’d show you some photos of how the lampshade developed, because it really did develop over time as various fringing and braiding was chosen for the design. It had been bought, along with the stand (not photographed here), from eBay, and was definitely a bit of a floral granny shade with a gold tassel trim. Nevertheless, it was a lovely shape with scalloped top and bottom rings:

Can you see the potential?!
stripped

From here on the design was down to the client along with her Interior Designer, Kate Lovejoy. I have to admit it wasn’t my style, but I also became quite attached to the finished lampshade – especially after working hard attaching so many trims and fringing! It was also great to make something a bit different, with strict instructions to ‘bling it up’!

The body of the lampshade is made from pink herringbone tweed which I love. Here’s a shot of it pinned to one side of the lampshade frame:

And so the transformation began…

Next I added purple braiding to the top ring of the lampshade (this is a good close-up of the fabric too, oh and a gilhoolie tag with matching purple ribbon added at the end):

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Followed by two layers of different length fringing in grey and purple:

Double fringing

Then more purple braiding on top of the fringing and a silver sequin trim (the bling):

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Finally, the finished lampshade in all it’s burlesque glory:

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I’ll post a photo of it in-situ soon hopefully; it doesn’t really go in my conservative looking dining room does it?! I was sorry to hand it over in the end though, maybe I should think about adding a bit of bling more often…hmmmm…

Lampshades

Small business… very big lampshade!

When it comes to drum lampshades, I like a challenge and it’s good to make something a bit different every now and again. So when I was asked by an Interior Designer, Kate Lovejoy to help her recover a very big seventies lampshade I was more than happy to.

Here’s what it looked like it in it’s glorious seventies condition; a little tired and bashed –

Before…

In fact it wasn’t that difficult to recover but it took two of us to roll the rings because it is SO big, definitely my biggest so far. Kate chose a lovely, colourful butterfly fabric that still has a seventies feel but now it looks beautiful (and still VERY big!)

and after!

So, another lampshade quandary successfully tackled and another happy lampshade and customer, did I mention I love lampshades?…