✥ French {The Bee} Lamp ✥

The other day I went to Savers Thrift Store to look for lamps and lampshades.

Luckily, I found both-
The lampshades I found were a little soiled. But they were super cheap so I thought a lampshade cleaning experiment was in order.

I got to use one on these sa-weet

Crate & Barrel Mercury Glass Lamps.

While I was there I found

this brand new lamp. At first I wasn't sure what to do with it and was about to pass it by, but the shape of the lampshade pulled me back to it. I figured there had to be possibilities with a near barrel shaped lampshade and figured I could come up with something!

Unsure of what to do with it, I primed it white with Rustoleum's Clean Metal Primer.  Then, well, then it sat in my pile of to do projects. 
Does this ever happen to you? You purchase something and then let it sit because you have no idea what to do next.

I finally found some inspiration online by browsing "painted lamps."

Isn't Google images the bomb? I seriously do not know what I would do without that search engine. 

Any-who, back to the lamp. I now had an idea and I painted it black. 

Then it got a few layers of clear coat. 

While that was drying, I put the shade on another base (the mercury glass one I did a few weeks back.) The next step was to turn to Microsoft Word. I copied the image I wanted and played around with the text until I had something I liked.

{I tried to attach it for you all, but I can't figure it out. I would very much appreciate any help you smart bloggers could give me!}

Once I had the template I wanted to use I printed it off and taped it to the inside of the lampshade.With the light on- it was really easy to see it, but if yours isn't you could trace it with a  black sharpie and then tape it to the inside.

I used black craft paint to fill in the image. Here you can see where I started, with just the "L" done.


Here's the close-up of the finished shade. I was pretty easy- I used super thin brushes and didn't worry too much about perfection.

I put this lamp in the spare bedroom/office. But the way things go around here, it could be moved anywhere in the upcoming weeks. Doesn't it feel like this is the way the lamp was supposed to look from the beginning? Hope you liked yet another lamp makeover.

Thanks for stopping in! Check out these AWESOME blogs who featured my Lamp!

Make sure you check out these A-Mazing sites you have graciously featured my project!

Looking for places to link up your projects? Check out my Party Page.
I'm also linked up here.