Okay, so you know those ugly boob lights? Most often seen in apartment buildings where you have no choice at all in your built in lighting fixtures? Yeah, it was really killing my vibe. Something had to change.
I really needed something to accent the tone of my room and a giant lit up boob on my ceiling just wasn't cutting it. The problem was, as a renter, I couldn't really change it out. My options were limited, I'd have to find a way to cover it. I considered getting a hanging lamp shade at Ikea and rigging it on my ceiling, but I would still be able to see the light from underneath and that didn't seem like a good option to me. That's when I thought about this gorgeous chandelier that is part of a clothing brand display at my local Macy's. I don't have a picture of it, but it was something like this:
I figured something like that couldn't be too hard to make, it was essentially just cut up ribbons hung in a circle. I just had to figure out what to hang it on, and how to attach it to the ceiling.
I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but I did know that Joann was having a good sale, and that I needed a lot of fabric. How much I didn't know, so I bought 1.5 yards of plain white fabric (regular $1.99/yard and used a 50% coupon) and .75 yards of a white fabric with glitter on it (on sale for 5.99/yard) and I wandered around the store looking for inspiration. I have seen people use the frame of a lampshade as the frame for these types of chandeliers, but the size wouldn't be right (it had to be at least the circumference of my existing light) and I didn't have any extra lampshades around I wanted to destroy. Then I found wire wreath frames. They were perfect! I got two, the largest size and the smallest size, they fit perfectly inside each other and I knew the largest would be large enough to fit around my existing light. To attach the two I used inexpensive chain and jump rings. You can use anything really to attach them, but I wanted to be sure it was secure and that I could get them all to be the exact length so nothing was askew.
I found the best way to get the fabric into strips was to snip and rip (here's a good tutorial of how to do this). I snipped a small notch on the part of the fabric that was folded on the bolt, about every inch (or however thick you want your fabric strips to be, be careful not to make too thick strips, they will not tie as nicely as the thin strips), then simply rip the fabric. You will get perfectly straight strips of fabric every time. Pull off the excess strings, fold the fabric over the wire, and tie in a knot, just like making a tulle tutu.
From there it's pretty simple. Snip, rip, tie; snip, rip, tie (this is a good opportunity to go on a Netflix binge). I found out pretty quickly that the amount of fabric I originally picked up was far from sufficient, so I made another trip to Joann's and got 5 more yards of white muslin and 1 more yard of my accent fabric and got back to snipping and ripping. Don't overcrowd your fabric strips on the frame, it will look cluttered and end up taking twice the time and fabric you really need. Your strips should fill up the frame, but you should be able to move them side-to-side comfortably.
The end result is so pretty it makes me smile every time I walk into my room.
Materials
6.5 yards of white muslin
(if you don't know why they're referred to as "boob" lights I can't help you)
I really needed something to accent the tone of my room and a giant lit up boob on my ceiling just wasn't cutting it. The problem was, as a renter, I couldn't really change it out. My options were limited, I'd have to find a way to cover it. I considered getting a hanging lamp shade at Ikea and rigging it on my ceiling, but I would still be able to see the light from underneath and that didn't seem like a good option to me. That's when I thought about this gorgeous chandelier that is part of a clothing brand display at my local Macy's. I don't have a picture of it, but it was something like this:
I figured something like that couldn't be too hard to make, it was essentially just cut up ribbons hung in a circle. I just had to figure out what to hang it on, and how to attach it to the ceiling.
I didn't know exactly what I was going to do, but I did know that Joann was having a good sale, and that I needed a lot of fabric. How much I didn't know, so I bought 1.5 yards of plain white fabric (regular $1.99/yard and used a 50% coupon) and .75 yards of a white fabric with glitter on it (on sale for 5.99/yard) and I wandered around the store looking for inspiration. I have seen people use the frame of a lampshade as the frame for these types of chandeliers, but the size wouldn't be right (it had to be at least the circumference of my existing light) and I didn't have any extra lampshades around I wanted to destroy. Then I found wire wreath frames. They were perfect! I got two, the largest size and the smallest size, they fit perfectly inside each other and I knew the largest would be large enough to fit around my existing light. To attach the two I used inexpensive chain and jump rings. You can use anything really to attach them, but I wanted to be sure it was secure and that I could get them all to be the exact length so nothing was askew.
I found the best way to get the fabric into strips was to snip and rip (here's a good tutorial of how to do this). I snipped a small notch on the part of the fabric that was folded on the bolt, about every inch (or however thick you want your fabric strips to be, be careful not to make too thick strips, they will not tie as nicely as the thin strips), then simply rip the fabric. You will get perfectly straight strips of fabric every time. Pull off the excess strings, fold the fabric over the wire, and tie in a knot, just like making a tulle tutu.
From there it's pretty simple. Snip, rip, tie; snip, rip, tie (this is a good opportunity to go on a Netflix binge). I found out pretty quickly that the amount of fabric I originally picked up was far from sufficient, so I made another trip to Joann's and got 5 more yards of white muslin and 1 more yard of my accent fabric and got back to snipping and ripping. Don't overcrowd your fabric strips on the frame, it will look cluttered and end up taking twice the time and fabric you really need. Your strips should fill up the frame, but you should be able to move them side-to-side comfortably.
The end result is so pretty it makes me smile every time I walk into my room.
I hung it on the ceiling using 3 screw-in hooks, and then I gave it a trim to even out the strips and cut off any straggling strings.
Materials
6.5 yards of white muslin
$6.50
1.75 yards of complimentary fabric
$10.50
18" wire wreath frame
$1.75
6" wire wreath frame
$1.25
chain
$2.00
jump rings
$1.50
Total project cost:
$23.50
Awesome idea!
ReplyDeleteThat looks so cute!!!
ReplyDelete