The Lampshade Lady Blog

How-to Vintage French Fabric Hex Bell

I recently purchased a nice grouping of French Cottons. Here's a nice early polished cotton. Often working with with vintage fabrics I find small pieces of fabric. In this case there was just enough for these 2 shades. It can be like a jigsaw puzzle to fit all styrene pieces onto the remnant of fabric. I tried to squeak one more smaller shade, too.... no luck.

I am ironing the fabric before it is cut out. (this is not an advertisement for Rowenta.... all my Rowenta irons are leaking... but hate to go get a new one.) My friend says her favorite is an old one she found at a tag sale.

Styrene is laminated to the back of the fabric. The paper backing is peeled off of the styrene. As my students know, getting the paper off can be one of the hardest parts! The panels are then cut out.

 Skipping ahead a few steps... here is the pair of shades with the self-trims added to the sides.

Making self-trims. I've used a contrasting floral fabric, definitely newer vintage fabric but best of the stack. I tried lots of different options and this seemed to work the best. It is French too, but probably 1950's. The cloth trim or bias trim backer is set onto the back of fabric and cut out.

Here is a close up of the technique. Quick glue onto one side and folded onto tape. The the other side.

The best part is adding the finishing trim. Run glue onto self-trim a few inches at a time and set onto shade.

NOTE: Shop is closed till April 5th.  Gone Spring Skiing.... but it is pouring rain out today. Good day to catch up on this belated blog post and start my new book by the fire. Crossing fingers sun comes out by Wednesday for some corn snow and sunshine.

Keep an eye out for the April issue of World of Interiors and April's  Crafter News, Random House's
New Craft Blog. I've loved hearing from so many of you from The May issue of Romantic Home. Gosh, It all happens at once but not complaining. Shall we say, on a roll.

A Big Thanks to Romantic Homes

          Lake's Lampshades and The Lampshade Lady's Guide to Lighting up Your Life featured in Romantic Homes, May 2010 issue.
How exciting to have my shop featured in the May issue of Romantic Homes. It's great timing with spring arriving and we are all thinking about sprucing up our homes or at least I am. I just bought an arm load of paint to spruce up my living room, tulips to bring spring closer and I'm itching to get out and search for vintage fabrics to inspire my lampshade creativity.

The loyal followers of this magazine are already starting to call my shop and email. I love hearing from you and love the exposure it is bringing my new Lampshade Lady book. It's a tricky time for book sellers and all these little boosts are super helpful.

Go buy a May issue of Romantic Homes and get psyched to spruce up for spring!

Pretty Vintage Crewel Cut-Corner Rectangle Bell Lampshade

                            A Vintage Crewel on Homespun Linen
                                          transformed into:
                  Cut-Corner Rectangle Bell Lampshade with new braid

              A tip on making lampshades with vintage embroideries and crewel is to trim up the threads on the back. This particular piece had tons of loose threads and long carries. It's a good job to do when your talking on the phone or chatting with friends. Kind of brainless, although you sure don't want to snip through the piece and YES, I have done that.

                On top of the grosgrain ribbon I added this gold braid. I think it came from Flights of Fancy Boutique.
             This frame was one carried by Fogg Lighting. I hear they are winding down their lampshade supply part of their business. Too bad, they've been around forever. As far as I know, The Lampshop is not carrying this particular frame, maybe they will in the future.  I decided to order a couple dozen of them if anyone is interested in a few. I do not generally ship supplies, but in this case I would be glad to do it if anyone is looking for a fun challenge. I'm home right now, but think it's 9 or 9.5" high and 12 across the bottom. Very handy size for desk lamps; I find it handsome on old alabaster desk lamps.

                                                  Detail of bottom and needlework. It reminds me of crewel work my Grammy Gulian used to do. She did lots and lots of crewel and I remember she liked to do a similar shading to this piece. Isn't the light pretty coming through the flowers?

                  
                                       Finished Shade. Sorry this photo looks dark. My yankee thriftiness limits me to 40 watt light bulbs in the shop.... heck there is a load of lamps in my shop. Maybe I will try to add a better photo tomorrow when I get back to the shop.
                            Today I headed down to the Garden Show in Manchester, Vermont. It was a blast of spring with all the smells of summer. I was looking for a some early lettuce starts to give it a try in my garden with a hoop row cover. My friend Paul had really nice mixed lettuces all started, Yay, so happy. This year spring has come early to Vermont and lettuce is pretty hardy under a cover. (I hope)  I also picked up a delicious purple primrose. As I was leaving the primrose lady, she said, "they spread like crazy", and I said "I can't wait!" Then we treated ourselves to lunch at Depot 62: the restaurant within the furniture store in Manchester Depot. They have a beautiful brick oven. We split a wild mushroom pizza and a glass of Kris Pino Grigio. Great Pizza!  Nice way to enjoy a Sunday.

Finial Friday

Finials = find cool vintage stuff + jb weld + let set overnight

  You've seen me use these vintage curtain pushpins before. They come in a variety of patterns and motifs. These are some of my favorites. The pins have a metal post that makes a nice anchor to be epoxied into the finial bases. I made a dozen finials yesterday right after I got a nice delivery of final bases. It's instant fun and a good excuse to sour your favorite flea or antique center for little bits.

    You may need to make a base to set your finds onto the finial base. The duck finial has a button and a crystal chandelier part as a footing for the cast metal duck. Just give them all a dab or 2 of epoxy. 

I love the texture of this pushpin below. Not sure it this one is rare, but had not seen it before. Isn't the pattern on top contemporary? It feels like it could have been designed in 2010 instead of 1910 or whatever it dates back to. The were originally patented back at the turn of the century.

P.S. Glue guns don't work well with finial making... been there, tried that. One year I made a cool finial with all the odd ball beads I had kicking around. I hot glued them onto a finial I had in my kitchen. One by one they dropped off.... good thing I tested it out before selling them... might have had some unhappy campers.

A Few Days without my Blog and Website

                                 Today was my first gardening day! It's going to be a while till the beautiful delphiniums are out like this. Snow drops are up and out. Weeded around my daffodils. Isn't the yard such a mess after winter. Today was my day off and had been planning to head to Stratton Mountain for some spring skiing, but woke up feeling crummy... shucks. It was the perfect blue bird spring ski day. As my friends know, I am a wicked fair weather skier. Pulling a few weeds and reading outside in the sunshine are a few of my favorite things.

          This weekend was a big reality check for me. My blog and website had totally disappeared. Gone. But where had they gone.... The host company had closed up shop with little or no notice... crap. I was so pissed. How could they just close the doors. Then I goggled them and they had lots of bad press... The internet spreads good news fast and bad news even faster.

       I don't love my website and my blog needs desperate help, but they are my connection to the world. I really do live in the middle of a few cow fields and a quaint, but sleepy slightly beat-up looking village. I stubbornly continue loving making one of a kind lampshades which is super hard and time consuming to put up online, but generally if customers are interested they email me or give a call. Life without the internet... hard to remember back, already. It is such a huge asset to little guys like me. 

            I've just realized how much blogging has meant getting my message of  Lampshade Design out and into the world. I enjoy sharing my design ideas and inspiring people to follow their path, their passion and start their own business. My blog has been an invaluable resource since my Lampshade Lady Book has come out. And yes, people besides my mother do find even if they don't make comments. I've realized that my demographics are perhaps a little bit older than many of the uber cool design blogs, just as I am too.... 

                     It does feel like the arrival of spring is bringing an excitement in the air. Keep an eye out for the April Issue of The World of Interiors. I haven't seen it yet, but word has it there are a couple of lampshades from The Lampshade Lady Book.  In April I am to be on my publisher's blog, Crafter News, May brings  a great article in Romantic Homes. In July/August I will be sharing a project in Yankee Magazine. Busy, busy girl.

             I am sure you love Home Magazines as much as I do or maybe you don't have the magazine addiction quite like I do. Jeez, I've got piles of them; I can barely go past the supermarket checkout without at least one or even better my local bookstore, The Northshire Bookstore . I can definitely throw out the crummy ones, but think back to some of the old Victoria Magazines, or some of those great covers of Country Living UK, or Country Home. I still have a cover from Houses and Gardens on my bulletin board.      

Happy Spring. My car clock will be correct soon....and the Hollyhocks will be coming up, too.

 

A Few Shades in My Shop

I battle the questions: do you have a catolog.... and the answer is always, no I do one of a kind work...which is a great thing, but always hard to share for the customer that                              

can't make it up to Vermont. I will try putting up some fresh work on my blog ( a little at a time and a little more often), so stay posted and email if you see something you love. so here goes and bare with me, I am still working through the changes at Blogger.    
  Early Vintage French Fabric Lampshade
cut corner square
top right without light bulb on
left with light
$125.



                                                                                                                                                                             Cut Corner Rectangle, Raw Vintage Linen trimmed in cream linen. great designer look.
                                                                             $125.

Square Bell Raw Grain Linen Grain Sack Shade with Blue Navy Stripe  $85.

Vintage Embroidery Hex Bell Dogwood with shirred Jacquard trim on bottom and decorative trim on top. 5" top x 8" bottom x 6" high. Clip Top.  Cost: $75. (light on)

one of a kind...

Light off, Vintage Embroidery Shade Hex Bell



A Vintage treasure found at the flea. Isn't it pretty? I bought it to use for my book projects, but didn't end up using it.

 Rectangle Clip Shade with Early Linen, not embroidered, one of a kind.


$75.

A pair of Hex Clip  5"top x 10" across the bottom x 7" high made from a vintage embroidery tablecloth. Trimmed with vintage insert embroidery.

$75 each.

detail of shade

Square Candle Clip Shades 
Vintage Mangle Cloth

2"top x 4" bottom x 4" high

6 shades available    $45 each

Vintage Grandma Moses Winter Scene 

5" top x 10" bottom x 7" high Clip Top

Hard to find Winter scene.Trimmed in vintage red paisley.

 only 2 available     $75 each

If you would like any of these shades, email me with any questions. We'll see how this works... or give me a call at the shop, 802.325.6308

thanks, judy lake