absolutely loving my life: flowers

This week I've been sharing projects that I completed for our guestroom last summer. I’m finishing off this week’s blog posts with a lamp shade project. I think I originally saw a lampshade project like this on Pinterest and was inspired to make my own. While this project is easy and inexpensive, it is time-consuming. It’s a lot like the Coffee Filter Lamp Shade I made. I recommend watching a television series on Netflix while working on this project to help the time pass;)

To start this project, I bought a yard of white linen at the fabric store and cut/tore it into one inch strips.

Then I started rolling the fabric around my fingers….

….until I had something that looked like this.

Then I loosened the fabric until it looked like a flower

Lastly, I hot glued each individual flower to the lampshade I found at Goodwill.

I strategically placed each flower around the shade making sure the shade looked full but not crowed.

And a few hours later, I had a lamp shade that looked like this. I'm pleased with the outcome of this project. I think the lamp is beautiful when it's turned on. The lamp and shade were from Goodwill, costing around $5 before the project. After purchasing fabric and a package of hot glue, the cost of the finished lamp was around $10.

To see more of the projects for the guestroom, click the following links:

Painting a Horizontal Striped Wall

No Sew Napkin Pillows

DIY Beaded Lamp Shades

Toilet Paper Tubes Turned into Art

More TP Art

DIY “Book” Shelves

DIY Vintage Insect Wall Art

Upcycled Coffee Bar

In the past, I have always had a few potted plants on the porch. I usually do four medium pots of geraniums, a large pot of impatiens, two hanging baskets of begonias, a basket of calibrachoa. On the back porch I usually have a variety of petunias, marigolds, and daisies.

This year, we decided to not only display potted plants, but to also work on the front yard landscaping. To do this, we had a friend help us take out two overgrown bushes that were hiding our front porch, by putting rope around them and pulling them out with his truck. We also had to take out a small maple tree on the side of the house that was dead. We chose to leave two small burningbushes on the side of the porch and two knockout rose bushes that we planted last year.

Once we took out the unwanted plants, we bagan to create a flower bed. To do this we used white spray paint and painted the outline of the bed. Then we took a shovel and cut out the flower bed. We made sure the bed had some curve to it to add to the curb appeal.

Next, we had to pick out the new plants. This was the part that we really needed help with. I had an idea of what I wanted. I knew that I wanted the bed to look balanced. The spacing of the plants and size of the plants was important to me. I certainly didn’t want to just plant a bunch of random plants and end up with a chaotic looking flower bed. I needed someone with knowledge about landscaping to help us pick out the right kind of plants. Fortunately, we had a friend who does landscaping on the side. He took us to a nursery and helped us pick out all of our plants. He helped us choose the following plants for our landscaping project: 1 goldenfingerbush, 3 salvia plants, 2 HCG Jacob plants, 3 little Henry bushes, 6 variegatagrasses, 2 red riding hood plants, 1 coralburst dwarf tree, 12 viola etainplants, 3 lucerne plants and 1 sun valley maple tree.

After we brought the plants home from the nursery my job was done. My husband and our friend went to pick up a truck of mulch, and they spent an afternoon making our front yard look like new. They did a GREAT job! This project was completed about a month ago, but the past couple of weeks the flowers have started to bloom! I am really enjoying the flowers this year. I can’t wait to see how the flowers mature next season.

Here are a few pics of our new flower bed……