Man, it’s been a while. I couldn’t remember the address for the admin function of my own website. Once I remembered that, I couldn’t remember my log in. Once I remembered that, I couldn’t remember my password.

All signs that it has been too long since I’ve written a post, correct?

I checked my site stats a couple of weeks ago, out of the blue, after not paying any attention to them for months and months. They had skyrocketed! I was so confused, since no new posts had gone up in so long. I finally tracked it back to Pinterest — people had been pinning my idea of making ornament swags. What a thrill that was! I’m such an admirer of Pinterest — to be pinned is quite an honor for me. So if you found this website via Pinterest, welcome, thank you, and my deepest apologies for not having any new content lately. Twins, toddlers, dirty diapers, learning to walk, eating solids, blah blah blah and yada yada yada. You know the routine. Things have been busy, yo. But I’m feeling the need to be creative again, so I’m hoping I can keep this up and running for a while longer. I’ve got two projects in the works this week, one of which I’ll show you today.

The husband and I have worked out a little routine: I get Saturdays to do what I want, he gets Sundays. This works pretty well, and I’ve been able to get to some yard, estate, and rummage sales this summer. My focus these days is mostly on baby stuff: so amazing. A year ago, I would speed by a yard sale that looked to be primarily kid stuff. Now I’ll hit the curb in a hail of screeching tires if I see an exersaucer in the yard. (My goal: to buy no new clothes as long as possible — everything must be second hand. So far, so good!) But I do still manage to find items in the style of Pretty.Quirky…the problem is, I don’t have room for anything anymore after adding two new human beings to my many collections. HOWEVER, I have opened up an Etsy shop! That’s right, just call me a lemming, I’m giving it a try. I’ll write more about that in the next post.

Yesterday, I didn’t have a lot of luck: there were two rummage sales, and they were very, very small sales. I did find this adorable zebra at a thrift store:

The only other thing of note that I got yesterday was a pair of these lamps, for $10:

I just realized I never copied instructions on how to re-cover lampshades to this site. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I’m not an expert, and if you look at the inside of one of my shades it’s instantly clear that I have much to learn, but it’s fairly easy, transforms a lamp, and allows me to use so many of the cool vintage fabrics I collect. Here are some shades I’ve covered in the past:

BTW: Some of the fabric I’ve used on the lampshades are from the Textile Discount Outlet. (Have we talked about the Textile Discount Outlet? It’s at 2121 W. 21st Street in Chicago, and it is fabulous. Three stories of the biggest selection of fabric and trim that you have ever seen in your life. I have rarely noticed any fabric priced over $14.95/yard; the majority of it is under $10 a yard.) You can also use any other fabric you like – curtains, sheets, anything that has a print and catches your eye. I even have a skirt with a wild graphic print that I plan to use for a shade. I used a suede, a chintz, and a cotton print for the three shades pictured above, and I didn’t notice that one worked better then another.

2. Cut the pattern out, allowing an inch or two extra on the sides. This is important, because you’ll need that extra fabric to fold over the top and bottom edges of the shade in order to leave a clean edge.

Do not use your favorite piece of fabric for your first lampshade, for you will make mistakes and ruin your favorite piece of fabric. Let us pause for a brief moment while I weep.

Again, make sure there is at least an inch or two extra on all sides of the pattern.

4.  Once you get the fabric cut, you are going to take it outside, OUTSIDE, I tell you, and coat the back of it with a spray adhesive.  I used 3M  multipurpose adhesive . It got over everything. I had it in my hair. I had it in my eyelashes. I’m still peeling it off of my fingertips. You do not want to spray this in your house. Also, beware of sudden changes in wind direction. The good news is that IT WORKS. So well that your fabric will stick to itself. I would recommend getting an extra pair of hands your first time through on this, because it’s not easy to make the fabric do what you want it to do once you’ve sprayed the adhesive. I found that the easiest thing to do was to lay the fabric (print down, glue up) on a clean surface while you move on to the next step.

5. Putting the fabric on the shade after applying the spray adhesive is the trickiest part. After some trial and error, I started only spraying a section of the fabric at a time, getting that on the shade, then going on to spray the next section. You just have to be careful to get the fabric on evenly or you will end up with not enough fabric on the top and too much at the bottom, or vice versa. The good news is that the spray adhesive is very forgiving; you can peel it off and re-position as needed.

6. Now smooth the fabric over the shade, because there will be air bubbles. Then smooth the fabric some more. And when you’re through smoothing the fabric, smooth it a little bit more. Let me just say that my first shade attempt was unusable because I left air bubbles in it. Smooth, people, until your fingertips are bleeding from your efforts.

7.  If you went a little crazy and have three or four inches hanging over the edges of the shade, trim those to no more than two inches. You want the inside of the shade to be neat, as it will be visible from certain angles. The light shining through your shade will also illuminate any messy work.

8. I used Aleene’s Fabric Fusion to fold the edges over and glue them to the inside of the shade. Once again, my handy-dandy binder clips  held the fabric in place while the glue dried. (I’m recommending a new marketing campaign for the binder clip folks – “Binder Clips: A Crafter’s Right Hand.”) Drying  is a lengthy process; I would clip the fabric for at least an hour to make sure it bonds.

And there you have it. I could have used trim on the shades – again, Textile Discount Outlet has bazillions of trim options – but  I decided to go simple with them the patterns were pretty busy. Also, fringe and ball trim tend to gather dust, and I haven’t quite figured out how to combat that.

After doing quite a few of these, I’ve come to realize that heavier fabrics work better than light fabrics; the microsuede I got from Textile Discount Outlet is great, as is Barkcloth.

I’ve missed you guys. Hope to be back soon with pics from the other project I’m doing right now.

Because I found myself with so much time on my hands (you know, what with the persistent morning sickness, yard sale, Vintage Bazaar, beginning of school, and nursery planning) I decided to do a few projects that I’ve had stacked up on my to-do list for some time now, mostly with an eye towards offering them at the Vintage Bazaar.

First, let me say that I have gotten over my fear of spray paint. Ya’ll, I’m spray painting anything that doesn’t run away from me, which, in this heat, could include one of my particularly lethargic cats. Here’s the first project.

I have many vintage earrings that are orphans and widows and/or broken, so I’ve been wanting to try this out for a while as well:

I realized I had two pink Nebraska souvenir plates and just had to do one more two-tier project.

I really love souvenir plates. I have some of them hanging in our apartment but there are only so many you can display before things start getting out of hand. So I decided to try and find some other way to use them that would allow me to display them in all of their kitschy glory.

I am getting so many things crossed off of my list this week. You wouldn’t know it by looking at my apartment, though, which is ever more dwarfed by two growing piles — one earmarked for the Newgard neighborhood sale and one for the Vintage Bazaar. In addition to going through all the nooks and crannies of my apartment, looking for things to get rid of, I’m also slowly but surely working through my list of projects. So, without further ado, take a gander at my repurposed lampshades.

So, reader Ord-Red is a pro at removing rust from metal objects and/or spray painting metal — here was her advice when I asked her about her methods:

Here is a easy little tutorial for working with metal pieces.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8542_refinish-metal-patio.html

I personally think it’s usually best to sand away rust. Otherwise it’s like the slow drip drip drip of destruction. And who would want to see a cool vintage piece destroyed?! I’m an awful painter — but so is everyone else. You just get better with practice. The real secret to spray painting for beginners is to work outside if possible (more room and fresh air) and to stand back from the piece and make sweeping passes with the paint. Standing back means less paint makes it onto the piece, but then you get to slowly build up the color without creating a goopy mess. It’s a slower process, but less chance for error. If you do get drips or goop, then let it dry, sand it off and retouch.

Post pictures if you do work on the pieces. I’ll be excited to see your efforts.

I am left wondering why Ord-Red does not have a blog of her own!

Last week, when I was first pondering this, I wrote Katherine at BackGarage and she used my question in her post today.

Much good advice to ponder.

After reader Traci wrote and taunted me with news of vintage fabric she saw at the Economy Shop a couple of weeks ago, I decided I needed to check in there again, which I did last Saturday. I still didn’t make it there very early — there is a perpetual war between my need-to-sleep-late self and my need-to-get-the-best-stuff self every Saturday — but I got a few great finds. And you know what? I really dig the VIBE of the Economy Shop. The people that work there are SO SWEET.

I also got this for $5:

I’m putting the final touches on this…

So. I bought this very cool, very old chimney cabinet over the summer at a yard sale. It’s been sitting in the garage, and two days before I hauled everything down to Arkansas to open the booth, I decided I wanted to try and take it with me. So I slapped a coat of paint on it. Very bad move on my part. I was in a huge hurry, so I didn’t sand it. I think I primed it at least, but I can’t say for sure. Plus, I loathe the color I used. Pink? What was I thinking? And it’s the only Sherwin Williams paint I’ve ever disliked — it’s their enamel paint. Which is still latex, I think, but a high gloss (which I’ve decided I hate on furniture) and really thick and goopy. In the end, it looked like crap (of course), so I ended up leaving it behind. Now it’s my next project and I spent all weekend sanding it down.

I am loving my rotary sander. I used coarse grit paper at first, then moved to medium, then fine. That cabinet is smoooooooth now. But I’m in a quandry. Sanding it down revealed the most beautiful layers of colors: the pink the I misguidedly put on, then a yellow, then a green — the latter both beautiful vintage shades. It looks like this now:

I don’t know what happened to me, but over the past year, I haven’t been able to say no to a single jar I’ve seen while out thrifting.