I have a hard time looking at vintage lamps and overcoming the often bland and dreary shades that adorn them. Looking at a DIY like this, though, inspires me to broaden my vision!
Heather Spriggs Thompson is a designer, artist and stylist with an extremely inspiring blog titled, appropriately, Heather Spriggs. One of her most recent projects was to transform the lackluster shade that came on an otherwise beautiful milk glass lamp. The result of her efforts is stripped down and very architectural, but at once feminine and delicate.
By simply stripping down the shade to its bare bones, wrapping the resulting frame in twine, and adorning it with strips of floral fabric, she breathed new life into this hum-drum shade. I love the end result, and could picture this delicate and feminine lamp with a low-wattage bulb on my bedside!
If you haven't visited her blog or her online magazine, Gatherings, you should. Soon!
Images: Heather Spriggs
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Comments (68)
what the......
Hmm. The before was definitely atrocious, but I think she's on to something. I would love to see what the AFTER after looks like when she actually finishes the lamp. I love the fabric and I'm curious to see what it would look like if used more of it and actually shaded the bulb.
Maybe the shade & pillow look different in person, but online it looks a bit like there was a accident and the lamp shade was ripped apart to be used to stop the bleeding. With the cloth & print selection aside, it seems like a shabby way of updating an old lap shade. It looks exactly how it is described...like someone stripped down a lap shade and wrapped twine around it. I guess that's creative, but I'm pretty sure there are about 1000 other more creative & effective DIY solutions to spruce up an old lap shade.
I hate to rain on your parade, but that fabric kind of looks like strips of bloody gauze in that picture. Maybe it's different in person, but eek.
It's obviously Regretsy day on AT. This looks like someone tore up their cotton menstrual pad in a fit of frenzy and attempted a conceptual feminist art piece called The Light of my Loins.
I love this white fabric with the floral! Do you know who it is by? Thanks!
the perfect fit for my zombiepocalypse room =P
Note that the after has no bulb. This has to be intentionally bad and done for shock effect. It would have been better to have pleated or shirred that fabric and simply recovered the shade. Different isn't always better...
Scary Carrie! Scary Carrie!
Thank you, Sussu, I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.
The basic idea is fine, but the execution looks awful.
@quiltmaster - she's got a bulb in it on her site. It ain't good.
Thank you for going there, Sussu.
How very tatty, Grey Gardens, and Miss Havisham.
I was going to say what everyone else has basically already said: looks like bloody WWII bandages.
I like these lampshade re-do's waaaay better:
http://maizehutton.blogspot.com/2011/02/vintage-doily-lampshade-diy.html
http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/diy/turn-heirloom-embroidery-into-lampshade-slipcovers-annalea-hart-142283
I agree with the Regretsy aspect (at least in the pictures)... also a question, which comes to me on other lampshade redos when the material is removed and the frame used bare... it doesn't really "shade" much anymore does it??
It is the Charlie Brown Christmas tree of lamps.
yuck. sorry, had to say it.
This looks like a lamp from Halloween USA.
Just showed this to my co-worker and she had a great idea: Should have dip-dyed to make the color look intentional.
If this is considered good design, then I must have seriously poor taste.
...heeeeeeeeere's Johnny!
why is everyone torturing their lamp today
I already commented and still think that lamp is hidonculous... but after visiting heather's site, she does have a few hits, this lamp was just a horrible, horrible miss.
...aaaand I just scrolled down some more and after an adorable bathroom that horrendous shade pops up again in an outdoor setting! WTF heather, PUT! THE SCISSORS! DOWN!
Now this....is a lamp re-do I can get behind. Lovely
This is a joke, right?
Looks like a bloody mummy had a run-in with a lampshade cage.
Goodness me, is this a crime scene photo???
I think it looks more like delicately bloody fairy bandages than WWII bandages.
I can see it now. A brand new craze sweeping the nation - Bloody Chic.
This is one of the worst ideas I've seen here.
so awful
Um...not feeling this at all!
I agree it's a little creepy, but I kinda like that...
It looks like the before and after photo tags were swapped or something.
Between the lampshade and the pillow, it looks like a murder scene.
Practically speaking, I don't see the point of a shade at all if the bulb is going to be completely exposed anyway.
how lovely! very romantic and creative :)
Oh dearie me. No no no no ....
I have been greatly amused, though, reading through these comments!
wow, i thought the after was the before. It is scary looking...like out of a horror movie where the slasher cut the lampshade while slicing someone open. gross
sussu dares speak what others only think
Oh No!
Bottom of the barrel, consider yourself scraped.
Not a fan.
Looks like some sort of bad accident involving an angry cat...
I bookmarked this page for when I need a laugh. I'll look at that shade and read the comments. Seriously. \0/.
What...the..?
Ok, this post was worth it only thanks to some of the comments..
It will look great with this doily featured on Regretsy:
http://www.regretsy.com/2011/07/07/stop-it/
Thank you, I think it's hilarious! Can't wait to show it!
I always try to be positive and when I don't like something, I don't say anything at all, usually. But I just have to say that it does indeed look like bloody gauze strips. Sorry. It just does. Yikes.
Is this a joke?
Saw the lamp and went looking for the after...except it WAS the after. From a Law & Order script...where's the murder weapon? And where's Lenny? (His presence might make it all worthwhile.) UGH
I have always considered shades to serve as filters for the glare of the lightbulbs.
While the fabric doesn't grab my attention, it invokes a creative idea that is catchy! Can't wait to try this idea with woven tree branches or other natural elements!
is that the transformation???
Normally I love the Before & After's here on Apartment Therapy but I swear the last few I've seen have looked way worse after... I don't even get this piece. I mean yes, the old shade was dated but I just don't even understand what the point of not covering it is, and obviously as people have stated before, what she did add to this looks like it should be in a horror movie. Maybe if it was stretched across actually covering a shade it would have looked more floral, but this just looks like bloody stringy fabric.
Horrible.
thank you for the laugh!!!
the lamp is not just horrible, but it looks like someone actually gave up halfway on making it horrible.
i love all the comments, each one!
Pulled from the DIY section of The Onion perhaps?
I think the flower in a teacup on a saucer on top of a book next to a chestnut really helps to pull together the look, though.
You know, if she'd have wrapped the entire frame in twine and left it at that, it wouldn't be too, too bad. A sort of outline of a shade, a ghost shade if you will. Still not a functioning shade, but better than those bedraggled scraps of fabric hanging down.
And the shade looks terribly out of proportion to the lamp. I'd've tossed the shade and found one that fit the lamp better, actually shaded the light and would make the lamp look pretty.
But that's me. I'm not a designer.
CRIME SCENE CHIC!
Seriously?
And thank you sussu.
Sorry to be negative but the shade with the strips of fabric is horrible and trying to pass it off as being creative makes me wonder what you were smoking when you chose it to feature.
This is disgusting.
If someone doesn't like their vintage lamps and shades, please send them my way so I can appreciate them in their original form.
rotflmao. Now that the shade offers no shade, the lamp is completely useless. I guess it can be left at the curb with a clear conscience now.
Did you hear that? It was my respect for AT leaving in a huff! What a ridiculous project!!!
Wow. the comments here are mainly thumbs down but obviously her fans on her actual blog love it.
AWFUL.
Never laughed so hard at the comments - hilarious!
Pleated Poppy did a similar thing with a lamp shade redo but she used a variety of bright-colored fabric and tied the fabric horizontal and covered the whole frame instead of 5% of the frame - looks WAY BETTER. Check it: http://thepleatedpoppy.com/2011/02/scrappy-lampshade-tutorial-and-long-story/
I SAW THIS DONE ON A LAMP FRAME ON ETSY.COM. THE WOMAN WHO DID IT FILLED THE ENTIRE LAMP FRAME WITH SHREADED SCRAPS OF FABRIC. ALTHOUGH, NOT ONE OF MY FAVORITS, IT WAS WAAAAAAY BETTER THAN WHAT WAS POSTED HERE. AT LEAST IT COVERED THE LIGHT BULB.
This is an old post but I just had to say I like it. I do like the exposed bulb look and I didn't even think of bloody bandages until other posters mentioned it.