Project #37 - Lamp for the Nursery (finished)

I am on a nursery blitz! Ideally, I would like to finish the nursery before I finish up work on the 22nd of January. In order for that to happen I need to (as a minimum) do the following:

• Finish the cot quilt;
• Make a picture for the wall;
• Sew the mini bunting flags;
• Make a foam cushion cover for the toy box;
  
• Sew a cushion for the rocking chair;
• Make a cover for the change table mat; and
• Cover the lamp I bought with fabric
  

I had been procrastinating about covering the lamp with fabric for a couple of days, unsure whether the instructions on the internet would really work, when I finally plucked up enough courage to try it.

Here is a picture of the lamp as I bought it from Bunnings:


Now there is nothing wrong with this lamp the way it is, in fact, it is quite nice. It just lacks a little 'pizazz', hence why I wanted to cover it with fabric.

The instructions I followed are here but there are a fair few tips that could have been included in the steps to make the endeavor more successful. These tips are as follows:

1. Iron your fabric first. Common sense tells you that if you put un-ironed fabric onto your lamp, it's going to look crinkly.
2. Cover the base of your lamp with a plastic bag to avoid any adhesive getting on it.
   
3. Spraying your fabric with starch prior to ironing will make it a little bit stiffer, so it will be easier to work with.
4. Spray adhesive really is not strong enough to hold the fabric to the lamp. It is suitable to 'tack' it to the lamp, but I question it's long term durability as the main adhesive used. I used spray adhesive, and then painted a clear drying craft glue over where the fabrics joined. I also opted to 'hot glue gun' the extra inch of fabric to the inside edges as I questioned that their 'bulldog clip' method would hold well enough. The use of these extra adhesives appear to hold the fabric on quite firmly.
5. I found that the outside looked like it had been finished, but the inside edges where you glue the extra inch of fabric to the top and bottom of the inside of the lamp looked a bit unpolished. Therefore, I opted to glue my ribbon along those edges rather than on the outside. This is particularly useful if you plan on having your lamp up on a shelf (like us) as you don't want people thinking that your lamp looks great until they get up closer and can see the inside edges look tacky!
   

Anyway, here is a picture of the finished lamp on the new floating shelves Matty put up yesterday (oooh how I love floating shelves!).

Well that's one step closer to finishing the nursery. What to next, that is the question!