This morning I bought three items at a neighbors yard sale. I bought a mirror, a lamp and a wooden box. I decided these would be good projects to use to start a DIY project blog. I will begin with the lamp. It had a nice shape, brass base and top with white glass in the middle. Most importantly it works! I began by taping the white part, the part where the bulb is screwed in, and the cord that is close to the lamp. Next time if I have a large section I do not want sprayed I will cover the whole thing... you will see why later. Then I sprayed the lamp. If you are going to spray metal with a shiny finish it is best to rough it up with some fine grit sandpaper first. If it is an item that will get handled a lot or if it will be outside then you may also want to use a coat of primer to make sure your paint will not chip off. Since this lamp had tarnished brass then all it needed was two coats of paint. I then went back over a few spots I missed under the bowl shapes. At one point my drop cloth blew up on the corner and stuck to the lamp :( So I had to go back over that spot. No worries it hid the spot good enough. *note to self: weigh corners down when spraying outside!* I let the lamp dry for about 30 minutes and then I removed the tape. As I took the tape off I realized I should have covered all of the white part. Luckily I had a remedy for the over spray! I used a green kitchen scrubber and it took the over spray right off. This worked because it is glass. If it had been a soft plastic or metal it would have been a different outcome. I am guess that the bottom of the lamp used to be covered by a nice piece of felt. But as you can see from the photo the felt had rotted. This is what it looked like when I pulled the felt off. To get a new piece of felt to fit the bottom I traced it with a piece of chalk. Cut it out and trimmed where needed. Since the lamp will not be moved around I just placed the felt on the bottom. Because there were still pieces from the old bottom it will stay in place. If I were to do this in the future I will just use some tacky craft glue. And here is the finished project... Before and After
1 Comment
adrienne
6/24/2011 05:06:37 am
sooo cute!! I can't wait to see more
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DIYMy favorite part about being creative is inexpensive Do-It-Yourself projects. These are either ideas I came up with or inspiration was found from another crafter's blog. If I found it on a blog I would like to give credit where credit is due and hope that you would do the same! Enjoy browsing and I hope you find some thrifty inspiration here. Categories
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