Tag: Light

Craft Projects

Lampshade refab

Jessica Smith

My coworker had a cute lamp in her office that another coworker left behind when she left. She loved the shape of the lamp and the shade, but the colors didn’t match the rest of her office’s blue theme with small pops of red here and there. The shade (I have no Before picture, sorry!) was covered in a bright red, orange and yellow paisley fabric.

In an attempt to redo the shade, she tore off that fabric, leaving the white backing in tact. I offered to help her refinish it because I have a problem and can’t say “no” to craft projects. So I stole her unfinished shade and took it home to make something purdy.

Here’s what I started with. Pretty bare boned, huh?

I had lots of ideas on how to redo her lamp shade. I ultimately decided to recover it with fabric because I thought it would work best in her office that way.

I grabbed a neutral fabric out of my fabric stash and started recovering the shade. I chose to use a dark stitch because I thought it would be a cute accent. I started at the top of the frame, stitching the fabric right through the white backing. I went around the top twice with the chocolate thread.

I don’t have a picture of this next step because I needed both hands to do it. Once the top was sewn onto the frame, I stretched the fabric as taut as possible around the bottom of the lamp and stitched it. Since the shade is smaller at the top, I needed extra fabric for the bottom half — this left me with an overlap of fabric. I didn’t want the unsightly seam to ruin Amy’s shade, so I added five grayish-blue flower embellishments.

For each flower, I cut a circle out of my fabric. I then pinched it in the middle and sewed it to the shade, folding the flower to get more creases as I sewed. Once each flower was on the shade, I sewed a chocolate-brown button to the middle.

I’m very surprised with how well this turned out. I thought for sure I’d be delivering bad news to Amy that I killed her lamp shade, but it’s alive and well!

What do you think? I think it’s pretty stinking cute, and much better than the bare naked shade!

Life

Light: Installations by Bruce Munro at Longwood Gardens

Jessica Smith

I had the pleasure of visiting Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Penn., this past weekend with my mom, sister and godmother. We had a day full of activities, including shopping at the QVC Employee Store (my sister works there), visiting Amish Country, tasting wine at three separate vineyards, and walking around Longwood.

I’ve been to Longwood Gardens before and it’s gorgeous, but Saturday night was spectacular. There was a special installation by British artist and lighting designer Bruce Munro called Light, and all around the gardens were beautiful displays of colorful lights. The conservatory was decked out in glass orbs hanging from the ceiling, the fountains were lit with colored lights, and there was a fiber optic display of lights winding up a mini hill.

Glass orbs hang from the ceiling in the Conservatory.
The fountain was lit with different colors.

But that’s nothing. The best parts of Light were the Forest of Light on the Forest Walk and the Water Towers on the Meadow at Hourglass Lake.

The Forest of Light on the Forest Walk.
The Water Towers on the Meadows at Hourglass Lake.

The Forest of Light was amazing. You walk down a dimly lit path at Longwood until you reach a winding path that meanders through a dark forest. Munro’s installation brings the forest to life — More than 20,000 glass sculptures (a 2.5′ tall glass stick with an orb on top) lined the pathways. Each orb was glowing with a color, which slowly changed, rotating through the various colors of the rainbow.

It was like walking through a forest in a fairy tale!

I was also reminded of the levels in Crash Bandicoot where your only light source is a firefly. Does anyone know what I’m talking about?

Once we were finished walking through the Forest of Light (which took a while because Emily and I lost mom and Phyllis for a while), we headed over to the Meadow at Hourglass Lake. Here we saw the Water Tower display.

Again, it was absolutely amazing. You are standing in an open field surrounded by these huge, glowing structures made of clear, plastic soda bottles! It was unreal.

On the way out of the gardens, we passed by one last installation: The Field of Light at the Small Lake. The same orbs that dotted the forest paths were on the opposite side of the lake, glowing radiantly under the starry night. The reflection on the lake was gorgeous.

The whole display was beautiful. If you are anywhere near Longwood Gardens, I highly recommend checking it out.

Here’s a video of the display being set up. Munro has set up many other displays of light around the world, too. His art is amazing.

Thanks for stopping by!

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