So I had some lighting issues getting this shade photographed, though this time it wasn’t the sun providing problems it was the actual lamp. The first lamp I had wouldn’t turn on, and then it took me two more tries to find a lamp that my shade would fit onto. But, finally I made it all work and got some good shots. (On a side note, I actually found this lamp sitting out on the street, so technically its a Rescued from the Curb piece.)
The base shade is a Lobbo shade from Ikea, which I found on my last trip there. $5.00 and I have a perfect base to decorate, how sweet is that. Then I created my pink flowers, which as Ariane correctly guessed, are made from toilet paper tubes! I cut each tube into thin strips, glued five pieces together to form flowers, and then dipped each flower into pink paint and left them to dry out on a sheet of wax paper. Here are some process pics:
I ran out of toilet paper tubes pretty quickly, so only about half the shade is finished. And I’m in the process of essentially sewing each flower on with some thin wire, but for now I’ve tacked most of the flowers on with a tiny bit of hot glue. I also learned that by letting the paint dry sitting on wax paper I ended up with one really messy edge on each flower, so I think for my future flowers I’ll probably try to hang them up to dry, so the excess paint simply drips off. I’ll update everyone to let you know if that works.
So far I’m happy with the results, but it wasn’t quite worth all the work it took. Mostly it was trimming off the messy edge of the paint, but overall I guess it just doesn’t quite pack the punch I was looking for. I love the idea of using the toilet paper tubes for some cool project, but I may need to keep searching for what exactly that project is.
I bought a few other Lobbo shades, one more this size and two in the smallest size, and I can’t wait to think of what else I can decorate them with! I think this shade would probably work best as a pendant light with the Ikea Hemma cord attached, but it isn’t bad as a table lamp shade for now.
What are your favorite toilet paper tube projects? I like the idea of painting them because they automatically seem a bit fancier. But I’d probably recommend spray paint, at least for all of you with access to an outdoor space to spray in. I like where the paint filled in between the tubes, but trimming off all the messy bits was probably not worth it. Hopefully my hanging method will provide a happy medium between the two, but once the weather is nicer I might just be looking for the best place to spray paint instead.
Only 4 weeks left to go, so stay tuned for a new 30x30x3 project coming up soon!
Ciao, Allison
the 3 R's blog 
What a clever idea. I can also see using even fancier quilled shapes to decorate the lamp shade – curlicues, fleur de lys, etc.
The concept is neat! It’s too bad about the paint being a bit gloppy on one edge,but at least we all learn from your experiences. 🙂 How about just using a watercolor brush to dab on the paint? It would take longer than the wax paper or hanging methods, but I know it works, as I did some card stock German bells that way. (Mindless work like that goes pretty quickly, actually.)
You know, I thought about brushing on the paint, but I wanted it to fill in some of the crevices and work a bit like additional glue, hence why I thought of dipping it. I still think spray paint is the smartest way to go but I might experiment with brushing on as well as dipping and hanging. I still have half a lamp to cover after all!!
I think doing some fancier quilling would be very pretty. For this, my main goal wasn’t as focused on quilling as it was on using the toilet paper tubes, and I wanted to keep that pretty simple. But, it was my first attempt so maybe next time I’ll get a bit fancier.
A
Very interesting! I like the texture of it… I’m a new follower! (RSS feed)
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hi this is mercy
rose is beautiful flower
I love these. How did you cut with such precision? Did you measure or just eyeball it? And did the rolls flatten while cutting?
The rolls do flatten when you start cutting, so I would specifically flatten each roll first (and try to crease the edge carefully) before I began. I began by simply cutting with scissors, which worked well but I found that by the end of the roll I was left with a piece that was super skinny on one side and super fat on the other, because the roll had sort of slid as I was cutting. So then I decided to try cutting with my big Olfa blade and a ruler, which I found worked really nicely. The cardboard from the tube is pretty thin, so only one or two swipes of the ruler cut all the way through.
I’m glad you like them! Let us know if you try some of your own.
Allison
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