Let There Be Light!

We've lived in our house for twelve years now. (Unbelievable--where does the time go?). When we bought it we were poorer than any church mouse--we were probably as poor as the church mouse's poorer cousin, shack mouse. (How, then, did we buy our house? Bought it from my parents, who are kindly, generous souls, and then scrimped like mad to pay the tiny mortgage each month. I'm frugal for a reason!) We've lived through quite a few changes since then: renovations as we could afford them (two years without a master bathroom, tile purchased a bit at a time) ; landscaping (sort of--sorry, sweet neighbors!); ; the birth of five children (the reasons for much of the renovating, which you understand if you, too, have children); etc.

In spite of the time span, and the changes for the better, I still remember how thankful I was to own a house--and how excited I was to buy the very first item specifically for that house: a lamp (on sale for $9.99!).
This lamp:

It's a little tired looking now--but so would you be if you'd watched the whirlwind this household can be for twelve years. (Come to think of it, I'm a little tired looking! I think the lamp has aged better.) So, I thought it was time for a little spruce-up, provident style. (The lamp, not me. That'll have to come later.)

I have some wallpaper that I fell in love with a couple years ago, and which I used to redo our kitchen table:

(The marine varnish I used to seal the table has a deep yellow stain to it; that's why it's such a different color--but that's okay, my kitchen is yellow, too. Serendipitous!)

I still have a lot of the paper left (and I'm seriously considering which small wall to cover it with), so why not use it to recover the tired old lamp? The leafy motif is perfect for the family room, and the stiffness of the paper would make the recovering process easier--far fewer wrinkles to worry about.

First I measured the circumference of the lamp shade, and added a half-inch to top and bottom and one side as overlap. Then I measured and marked on the paper where the shade support wires were. I notched paper out at those places with scissors and a hole punch so the paper would wrap around the wires and not tear. Then I placed the paper around the frame, matching notches to wires and folding the top and bottom "hems" over the rim supports. I glued the side overlap and the hems, and clipped it all securely to let it dry.

 

It was just a simple project (no cost, because I used only what I already had on hand) but it made a big difference. I hope we get another twelve years of use of of this thing!