Day 50 – painted lampshade

I love birds!

Tracing the pattern

Before…

After!

After!

I did it!  Ok, I guess I can paint…Although it didn’t turn out the way I thought it would, I went with the creative flow and completely scratched my plans for a “parisian script, vintage postcard” theme.  I love how it turned out!  Mind you, I worked on it for a couple days in order to collect my thoughts on the best mix of birds and birdcages before I started altering it with heavy black paint.  And please note, DO NOT try black sharpie pens.  I thought I’d take the easy way out on some of the thin lines.  It didn’t work on this cloth-based lampshade-the ink bled as you can imagine!

You can DIY this yourself:  Take a boring old lampshade with a flat surface, grab a thin paintbrush and some black acrylic paint and here comes the fun.  Find some awesome black and white images-there are lots that are public domain online which is what I did.  Or you could use coloring book pages, or even masking tape to mask off a design.  The sky is the limit as far as designs.  I taped the pictures onto the inside of the lampshade, turned the light on and started tracing my designs.  Best of all, this project was free-an old lamp that still worked but was sad in a corner of the guest room, and a bottle of acrylic paint for less than a dollar.  I had a couple paint brushes which I imagine you probably have, too.  Oh yeah, and I forgot about that “afterthought”, the ric rac trim.  I found some extra ric rac trim in the basement and glued it around the edges.  I think it added a lot, what do you think of my creation?