09 June 2015

How to DIY a flower lamp for baby nursery - DIY baby nursery lamp makeover

I am sure you have seen the beautiful flower lampshades that are adorning baby nurseries all over. Pinterest and Etsy are full of them and every high end baby nursery has one. 



The beauty of them however is that you do not have to fork out big money to buy one for your little princess. You can make your own! It really is not difficult, just a bit time consuming, but the end result is something that will WOW everyone and it is such a pretty addition to your baby's nursery. 

I am busy decorating my little princess' nursery at the moment and decided to make her one of these gorgeous shabby chic flower lampshades. It came out better than expected! I love it and it is such a focal point in her room and gives out a soft glow...perfect for midnight diaper changes. 



What do you need?

1. An old lampshade/lamp
2. Glue gun and glue sticks
3. Organza fabric in the colour of your choice (I chose pink)
4. Beads (I used pearl colour and light pink)
5. Candle and some prongs/pinchers

To start you need to make sure the lampshade you are going to use is nice and clean and free of dust. I had an old lamp from my son's nursery that I used. 





You then need to start making some flowers for your lamp. You need ALOT of flowers and it can be time consuming. It took me about 3 evenings to make enough flowers to cover my lampshade. I find it easier to break it up into 3 evenings and not to sit and do it all at once! It took some patience as I wanted it to be done NOW! 

To make the flowers you need a flower template or you can just cut circular shapes out of the fabric which I did. I started of with the template but then later just make circles which worked just the same. The size of the circles depends on how big you want the flowers to be. I made mine about 5 cm (2 inches) and some smaller ones too. 



Once you have your flowers or circles cut you have to hold each one over your burning candle with your thongs (it gets very hot!) Do not put your fabric into the flame, it will burn black! Just hold it over the flame so the heat melts the ends of the circle and it starts curling up. You will see and you can then judge how much you want it to curl and shrink! This is your flower petals. 




Once you have all your flower petals it is time to assemble your flowers. You take one or two of the bigger petals for the bottom and some smaller ones for the top. Rearrange them so that they look good for you and look like a shabby chic flower. You can now stick the petals together with your glue gun, just a drop of glue between the layers. Be careful the glue is hot!!! I have burned myself a few times glueing these together. Once the flower is done you can glue your bead into the middle.

Now the fun starts. Glue all the flowers you just make onto your lampshade. Glue them close together so that you cannot see through them. I finished my lampshade off with a nice ribbon at the top and bottom and I glued a piece of lace onto the bottom of the base too, just beacause I liked the look of lace on wood.




Be creative wit your flowers and lamp and have fun!

Here is the final piece, isn't it just gorgeous! 


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