Button lampshade

I was given a plain, dark red lampshade on a dark red porcelain base by my aunt, which goes perfectly with the subtle red theme in the bedroom, on the bedside table. However, over the weekend I decided that the red needed slightly toning down/lightening up to blend with the other furniture and bits and bobs in the bedroom...

Materials:

• old lampshade
• fabric
• buttons
• pva glue
• needle, thread and pins

1. I cut a rectangular length of cream material that was left over from the bedroom curtains and pinned it over the red lampshade in order to see whereabouts the ends of the fabric would overlap. At this point I folded about 1/2 and inch of one edge of the material under itself and pinned it into a hem.
2. I then glued the fabric lightly onto the lampshade and held it in place with pegs at the top and bottom while it dried. Then I overlapped the fabric round the top and bottom of the lampshade and used a sturdy needle to sew neatly round the top and bottom, and vertically down the seam where the fabric overlapped itself.
3. It needed something to finish it off, so I collected lots of similarly coloured buttons from my button tins and sewed them along the bottom edge of the lampshade.

Quick and easy bunting

Last night I finally knuckled down and finished off a project I began back in June for two friends' surprise birthday picnic - some good old-fashioned celebratory bunting.

Picnic party time

All you need for a similarly easy (and hopefully much quicker) string of bunting is:

• Lots of different coloured scraps of fabric - I think bunting looks great when all the fabrics are mismatching and contrasting, so have a rifle around to see what you can find for free, rather than going out and buting any material especially
• Scissors
• Triangle template
• String (As long as you'd like the bunting to be)
• Needle, pins and thread or sewing maching

 

1. Back in June I began by cutting a triangle template (23cm down the long sides and 17cm along the short side) from an empty cerial packet, and using it to cut out what felt like hundreds of different coloured fabric triangles. I cut about a centimetre off the two top corners so that when the top side of the fabric was folded over the string, the corners didn't stick out.

2. I loosely tacked the top of each triangle over the string with coloured thread so that I would be able to unpick it once I had sewed it properly with the sewing machine.

Unfortunately I then ran out of time before the picnic that I wanted to use the bunting for, so it was strung up slightly precariously on that windy summer's evening, but managed to do a good job of decorating our picnic area on Clapham Common!

3. So, last night after months of unnessecary procastinating I sat down with my sewing machine and stitched a simple running stitch over the string and top edge of the bunting to hold it all firmly in place, and stop each tirangle sliding along the string, once and for all. Then I unpicked the original coloured tacking stitches and voila...

...cheap and cheerful indoor or outdoor bunting for any occasion!