Fall Pinterest Challenge: Doily Lampshade

One of my favorite home improvement/general awesomeness blogs, Young House Love who is also an avid Pinterestista (can I make that up??) posted a challenge. And if you know me, you know may also know that I am all about competition. Even though my opponent is really just myself and whether or not I would get around to posting on my blog :) Here are the projects that the other ladies hosting the project completed for the challenge: Sherry's, Katie's, Ana's, Erin's. You can also check out the YHL (Sherry's) post that has links to HUNDREDS of other Pinterest Challenge projects that other readers have posted.

Anyway, I took on the challenge, at the very last moment if you did not notice (hey, I did start a new job YESTERDAY!) but alas, here is my take on this beautiful doily lampshade project I saw months ago and to be honest started in probably June.

I started by collecting doilies. Then I used tea and coffee to dye them thanks to Vince's extremely talented sister-in-law, Michelle, who gave me some great tips on getting the right color.

The process is pretty easy, and can be corrected easily by rinsing or adding more coffee/tea to the mixture. Basically choose a container, I used our stainless steel kitchen sink, then placed tea bags into the empty container. Boil enough water to cover the items you are staining and pour it over the tea bags kind of rotating between them. You'll decide how many bags to use based on how dark you want your items to be post-dye-bath. I also added some leftover coffee I had brewed that morning. Next you put the items, doilies or otherwise, into the bath and let it set for a while...not sure how long I left them I just walked away and came back later. I drained the bath, and wrung out the doilies and set them outside to dry.

Then, after months of sitting in my "to-be-crafted-someday...maybe" pile, I finally got motivated to complete the lamp shade for two reasons: 1) I was sick of looking out the naked bulb in my dining room/office 2) I got a job offer and knew my craft time would be lessened soon.

The first step was moving the hanging light over slightly so that Vince no longer had to duck to go past it and so that it was more over the table that is now used as a desk and craft space. This was easily done using a plastic staple, I even did it all by myself. I just eyeballed it and used some of my excellent lucky balancing skills to hammer it into place and ta-da! Here is it:

Next I got to work on the actual lamp shade:

1) Find something to hang your balloon from. I used I punching balloon from the dollar tree because I'm cheap and you can get 3/$1 there. I used some string to hang it from a screw on our light fixture in the bathroom so that any spilled wallpaper paste would be easy to wash up.
2) Mix up (or don't if you bought pre-mixed) wall paper glue. This part reminded me of the paste in pre-school. Smelled like it and had the same texture..sweet memories.
3) For each doily that I added I just stuck it into the glue, squeezed it around, then pulled my hands down it taking off the excess.
4) Start adding them around your balloon. I left a little bit of space at the top but not too much as I knew that I would be pulling a couple apart and sewing it up later on.

5) You're probably going to need some help during this part as your hands will be covered in wall paper glue and every time you try to add a doily your balloon will try to run away. Just have help. Even if that help has to stand in your shower. You won't regret it, but Vince may regret taking this self portrait.
6) Make sure you overlap a little bit or else this whole project won't work! :)
7) Once you have finished applying all of the doilies, you just have to wait. 4 days..my glue dried slooooww, and then I wanted to make sure it was good and dry.
8) Finally it was time to pop the balloon. This was disappointing and entertaining as there was no bang as the latex stuck to the glue and I had to peel it off by hand.

9) I went ahead and pulled apart some of the overlapping doilies at the top so my hand and arm could reach inside to pull the balloon off the shade. As I went the sides of the lampshade lost there shape but only temporarily as I could push them back out without permanent damage.
10) Since my light was now higher I couldn't sew up my raw edges as I had planned but found a couple of gold buttons that fit through the holes of the top doilies and sewed them on to secure it to the light fixture. I should also note that I left the glass shade on the existing light fixture to serve as the top of the shade and give it something to hold on to.
11) The doily shad in place and button-secured. I do need to work on this, it's kind of not round but for now it works.

Here's our new dining room/office light in all it's shining glory:

Gorgeous right? I love that it dims the light and adds such a unique look to the space. It's a little messy of a project, and it takes time to collect the supplies but for roughly 10 bucks it's a fun and pretty project to take on!