"Whoooo" Is Hanging Around The Nursery?

Whose hanging around the nursery these days?  This cute little owl sitting on a branch.  

This is him without the light on...

...and this is him with the light on.  

I love the way the light creates a blue edge around the shade!

My daughter's nursery was lacking in overhead lighting, so this was our way of alleviating some of the problem.

I covered a thrift store shade with some thrift store fabric.  I deconstructed a thrifted swing arm lamp for the actual lighting portion of this lamp. 

I appliqued an owl on a tree branch to match her woodland theme in the nursery.

Vintage buttons were used for the eyes.  The whole project came in well under $10.00

You can see the whole process after the jump.

The Process

I began with a large shade and some lightweight polyester fabric that had a little bit of stretch to it.  I placed the fabric around the shade and cut a length that would allow for extra fabric to fold over the top and bottom edges.

I cut my applique pattern from various fabrics and, using iron-on webbing, ironed them onto the polyester fabric, using a pressing cloth as to not hurt the polyester with the hot iron.

I opted for straight stitching around the applique pieces.  It was faster, easier, and it wasn't going to go through the wash, so I figured it would be alright.

Once all the pieces were stitched on, I wrapped the fabric around the lamp shade with the right side against the shade.  I pinned the back seams together snuggly.  I carefully removed the pinned fabric, stitched and trimmed the seam.  With the right side out, I then put the fabric back on the shade.  Because the fabric had some stretch to it, it fit around the shade very nicely.

Using a low-temp hot glue gun, I placed glue around the inside edge of the shade and folded the fabric over the top and bottom edges.  I made sure to pull the fabric gently as I glued so the finished result would be taut.

Once glued, I trimmed the edges to about 1/2".

I snipped the fabric to allow for the metal supports.

I secured the edges with a little more glue, then covered them with bias tape to give the inside a nice finish.

Now that the shade was done, I turned my attention to the swing arm lamp.  I removed all of the "swing arm" part of the lamp, including cutting off the plug end.

I wasn't going to use a chain to hang this lamp, but I didn't want just a white cord either.  So, I decided to cover the cord with fabric.  I cut several strips 2 1/2" wide, stitched them end to end, then folded and stitched them. 

I then turned the tube inside out and threaded it onto the cord. But...

...I got ahead of myself.  I needed to thread the cord through the lampshade first before threading it through the fabric.  So I guess the first time was a practice run!

I put the cord through the shade and then wired the light fixture in place.

Then, round two of threading the cord through the fabric tube.

To finish, I needed to wire the plug back on.  Actually, I needed the cord to be longer so that it could hang from the ceiling, and then swag over to the corner.  I used an extension cord and wired it to the cut end of the light cord.  I would show pictures, but I'm not a licensed electrician and didn't feel comfortable giving directions.  So find someone who's handy with that sort of thing and ask for their help!  It's easy.

 

I used two clip-on cafe rings to attach to the fabric covered cord, and then hung those from two ceiling hooks.

I like to link to these great parties!