A month or so ago, I took a drive to the local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store in search of a lampshade to finish off a lamp base I had made over. The base just isn't selling, so I figured it needed a shade to make it more appealing. I started pricing lampshades and was discouraged at how expensive even the most simple shades are so I headed to the re-store in search of a bargain. I was excited when I found a shade that seemed perfect for only 5 bucks! You can't go wrong right? I bought the shade and drove home with high hopes that this shade would be the magical cherry on top that I needed. Well my hopes were soon crushed by reality as soon as I put it on the harp and stood back. Ugly, just ugly. So now I'm stuck with an ugly $5 lamp shade that has no purpose in my world. I start to envision the look that will appear on my husbands face when he sees yet another "rescued" item land in his garage to take up space while I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with it....So I did what any reasonable adult woman would do and hid the shade at my dads house. Problem solved!
As a month went by, guilt started getting the best of me. Every time I walked by the offensive lamp shade I felt shamed by my $5 bargain. I considered throwing it out, but that goes against my entire philosophy so that wasn't an option. I decided to take action. This lamp shade needed to be turned into something special and I was the woman for the job!
I searched for a graphic that I liked on thegraphicsfairy.com and printed it out. I taped the graphic on the inside of the shade then turned on the light so that the print could be seen on the outside of the shade.
The rest was simple grade school style tracing. I used a regular sharpie marker and got to work.
My plan was to spend a half hour or so, then sell my $5 find for about $20. I just wanted to get rid of the thing to be honest with you. Well, I ended up LOVING it and keeping it for myself! This was a super easy and really gratifying little project. Go for it!
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