Embroidered Lamp Shade Tutorial

I've been getting crafty lately. I needed some lamp shades for the boys rooms. I wanted something cute, cheap, and something that matched the rooms. It's pretty hard to find all of that rolled into 1 lamp shade, so I set out to make them instead. It was really not that hard.

First of all, I found these great shades at Hancocks for $12.

It's an adhesive lamp shade! I also bought a half yard of fabric that matched each of the boys' rooms. I used a round shade and a lighter weight gingham for the nursery and a square shade and heavier weight upholstery fabric for Carter's room. I would highly recommend using the square shade and heavier weight fabric - they are both WAY easier to work with and the heavier fabric hides more of the imperfections!

I used the template that came with the shade to cut my fabric. I left extra all the way around so that I would have some to tuck under.

Then I folded under a small portion all the way around the edge of the fabric and straight stitched it to keep the edges looking nice. 

Next, I measured the center and embroidered the monogram onto the fabric. 

Then I stuck the fabric to the shade. This seems like a simple step, but there's a lot of positioning, sticking, smoothing, undoing, and repeating involved in this step! Again, the heavier weight fabric and the square shade were much easier to work with here. 

Finally, I took my hot glue gun and tucked and glued the extra fabric around the top and bottom edges. It's not perfect, but it works!

The finished products? 

Cute - check

Cheap - check

Matches Rooms - Check

I'm a happy girl!

POST BONUS:
Here's a picture of the guest room valence that I made while my mom was here. That room desperately needed something to frame the bed, and this valence did just the trick!

Cornice Boards

I am trying to get window treatments up in all the rooms in our house. I have yet to do anything with Carter's big boy room, the play room, and our guest bedroom. I decided to go with cornice boards for the playroom for 3 main reasons...

1) Screwed to the wall
2) High and out of reach
3) Covered with fabric that adds color/pattern to the room

Here's how we made them...

Kevin built the frames from scraps he had/found laying around:

I wrapped it in quilting batting and used a staple gun to attatch it: 

Then I wrapped and stapled my fabric. I used Anna Griffin's "Haven - Ochre" fabric which I also got at the Sew Beautiful Marketplace with my Living Social deal that I talked about in an earlier post. 

The finished product:

Before:

After:

Our Finished Playroom:

The "pyramid thingy" on top of the storage unit was made by my sister, Anna Katharine, and designed by my mom! It's all of his first year monthly pictures + some cute extras transfered and mod-podged onto wooden blocks. Thanks guys, it really adds a lot to the room :-)