Two Things Tuesday...done with one type of fabric...

I am in a bit of a rush this week because it is the count down to my littlest girl's 3rd birthday and birthday party! Which means guests who will stay and guests who will visit and I always have this last minute "oh my goodness, I haven't done ANYTHING to the house since the last time lots of people were over" madness. It is a true sickness. I have people over to my house quite regularly actually. It's just really around the birthday parties, Thanksgiving and Christmas that I get all in a tizzy. I'm really hoping that saying it "outloud" will be some sort of therapy. I KNOW no one is really expecting anything...like I said, it's a sickness , an inexplicable one. Anyway---


THING ONE: New curtains! This is a project that has been on the list for 2 yrs *whince* and I finally bought fabric and completed it--yippee! I Have really been on the fence about my house's color scheme lately. I thought I was going to go green and turquiose-ish, but now I think I may go green and red-orange. Maybe some turquoise will still get in, although that seems like a lot of bolds. I found this fabric on sale at Joann's for $1.99/yd--couldn't buy them at IKEA cheaper (I tried). Very simple, not much to them. That pattern is so busy I thought it was enough. (PS--Curtain rod, IKEA, $1.99, 'nuff said)

Obviously, this is the playroom....someday, turned guest room. Those dots are so fun and modern, how could I pass it up?

THING TWO: Then I went orange dot fabric crazy...slightly. I have had these two floor lamps (other one depicted above in curtain pic) from Target for...ever. They had a crinkly paper thing going on which, I don't know if you know or not but, paper rips!! Kids grabbing stuff to hold onto+paper lamps= horrible looking!! So I did an impromtu recovering of that white one in the pic above. It was ok, just sorta boring. Well, give me a little extra orange dot fabric and TADA--new and interesting lamp shade! I really can't decide if I truly like it or not. It does give off an orange-ish glow I'm not used to.

Here it is, turned off, so you can see what it really looks like.

The recovering is amazingly simple. Measure the length, add a little for a seam. Measure around the metal rings at top and bottom and sew a tube to match that measurement. Then I just folded the fabric around the metal ring to the inside and handsewed all the way around. I literally just tore that paper lamp shade thing off the metal rings! It was pretty much no going back from there! Had I known how easy it was, I would've done it a long time ago. I also found out that those types of lamps give you a big range of length to play with. I went pretty short with the plain white one, and longer with the orange dot. Something to think about...

So, there are two things with one fabric! Hope my hubby recognizes the house when he gets home...!