Chipping Away

Happy Hump Day to all of you out there!  It has been a slow week, and when I say slow I mean slower than a snail, its verging on ridiculous but on with todays project.  So you can see below its not super pretty or super straight or super anything.  This project is by no means a failure, but I can see that it does need a little extra work that I had not thought about.

So lets start with where this inspiration came from...Im sure you can guess it came from pinterest, and here is the link so you can check it out.  I saw this and thought it would look great over one of the lights in my hallway going up to the media room.  For the example it looks like they used a small frame and I needed it to fit over a light so I bought some floral 10 guage wire and made my own form.  This was the first misstep because this floral wire doesnt hold up when it is sodered together.  I am going to have to make a new frame but that shouldnt be too hard.  I made 2 frames on big enough to fit over the light and another smaller to fit down the middle to make a layer for the "chandelier".

The circles arent perfect but I figured they would work.  So on to the paint chips.  I always go to Home Depot for my paint because I love Behr and the selection they have.  So I got a whole bunch of paint chips in purple.  What I love about Behr is there are 3-4 colors on the sheet so you can see how the color gets darker in color which is perfect from the ombre for this mock chandelier.

 I cut each strip apart (as shown below) so I could get the punch where I needed it to go to get the most out of the strip

So to cut the circles I used a whole punch from Michaels scrapbook section.  I think this one is a 1/2 inch but I cant remember.  I was able to get 3 punches from each strip so that was excellent.  I had to take the back off the punch so the holes would fall right out rather than stay in the plastic holder so I could see where I was punching to maxamize the punch, yes Im a little crazy but I think we all know that by now!  After I cut all the holes out I seperated them into baggies so I wouldnt get the colors mixed up (I did one color at a time also to not get them mixed up).  The I was ready to move on to phase 3...follow me this way :)

So this was the dumbest idea I had and will fix this too when I do my redo, but I decided it would be best to use string to connect each circle.  When I do the redo I will use metal sticks to make sure its even and not lopsided like this mess here.  But I used string on 4 sides and was ready for the next step.

I used a flat surface to line up all the paint chips in the order or color that I wanted (2 of each color)

The I flipped them over

Using tape and upholstry thread (because thats what I have in the house dont judge!) and taped the thread to the backs of the chips leaving enough string to tie the chips to the metal frame.

You can kinda see the string a tape better in this picture.  I did about 20 of these and was ready for the last phase...attachment.

I decided to hot glue these to the frame to make sure they dont swing around and show the backs, which started out as good idea as I did the bottom section.

See the hot glue here.

But as I made my way around, I noticed the biggest error which no hot glue can save me from...you can still see the backs because the circle is so big.  The hot glue worked great as was a fantastic idea, but since you can still see the backs I am going to have to take them all down and attach another paint chip of the same color to the back so it looks amazing no matter what.  I will give you and update when I have enough patience to get this going again. 

Now you go try this at home, trust me it was harder than I thought but I am sure once I make some adjustments its going to be awesome!!  What do you think, any suggestions on how to make this better?

Project Housewife Out!

Light up the Room

Im so happy to share today's project with you because it was like my best idea EVER!  Remember when I told you I used to hate my bathroom and redid it to look amazing in green , well if you dont click on this link and you can check it out.  Anyway, the first version of my bathroom was pale purple walls (that everyone thought were pink, major boo on that) with grey towels/bathmats and moroccan accents of lanterns and flowers.  Ok I dont know WHAT I was thinking when I put all that crap together, and I mean crap it didnt look good together and my face wash bleached the grey towels so they looked like crap too.  Needless to say I have my pretty bathroom today but what was I going to do with all the stuff I had in the old bathroom?  Well the old towels are sitting in a linen closet with the rugs, the flowers are in the media room waiting to be put to death and the lanterns, well thats where the project comes in.

I got this great lantern from Pier 1 to use in the bathroom and I didnt want to get rid of it because I really liked it, but at the same time I didnt know what to do with it.  Enter the guestroom.  I have this awesome colorful floral quilt-esk comforter in the guestroom so I thought it would look great in there, then I though man it would be cool to have a lamp of sorts on the nightstand next to the bed.  Well sir, why not make this awesome lantern a lamp!  So all you need for this project is:

1. lantern
2. drill (one that makes circles and can cut metal)
3. lamp bulb kit (you can find these at home depot for around $5)

Wow, only 3 things you say!  What an easy project!  I know it took all of 10 minutes to do, crazy right!  Ok so all you need to do is drill the hole in the bottom of the lantern and install the lamp kit according to the instructions on the package.  Plug in the lamp and turn it on.

See how awesome it looks when it lights up, throws that cool pattern on the walls with all the colors on the sides of the lantern coming to life, I love it and am so happy to have thought of this project.  The fact that it was way easy was an even bigger bonus.

What awesome items could you reporpose to become useful again?!  I would love to hear your awesome ideas!

Project Housewife Out!

Im linking up!  Come check it out at Southern Lovely , Lil Pink Pocket , Vintage Gwen, House of Hepworths , Beyond the Picket Fence , and Blissful and Domestic