Spray Paint, Hot Glue Gun and Fabric

The I want to change my kitchen and front room bug has hit me. I moved some furniture around but it didn't satisfy me enough so I had to make even more changes. But there's this whole money thing that is holding me back a little so I had to figure out how to improve with minimal damage.

After reading many blogs, my goals were to bring more light in, touches of black and improve the decorations and include lemons and a pear. Just wait, you'll see why. lol

First up is on my piano:
I bought the lamp for $10 from walmart. It was super cheap compared to the other options and I liked the red lamp shade and the base is kind of a rustic black (not just black). But because it was so short, I needed something to give it more height. I bought the box at Michaels for $2ish. The lid had red on it as well as a lady so I spray painted it black (but not solid- you can still barely see the red in some spots, which I like).

Next up is a lamp I bought for $5 that was on clearance at Shopko. My camera battery was dead and I'm horribly impatient once I decide to do something so I had to take pictures with my laptop camera, which I've never used.

This is me trying to figure out how to get it to work.. (plus my face looks smaller- how can I not include that???? ROFL)
Cheese!
Sorry, back to the lamp. It was a purplish color but not really in a good way (and I like purple!). I know it's a dark picture but you get what I mean, right? On clearance for a reason.

I spray painted the bottom of it black.

After mucho effort, I came up with a pattern for the lamp shade using my Smith's ad. And I cut the fabric slightly larger than that.


Then I used Alligator hair clips (which I use to make the girls hair bows) to attatch it to the lamp. Then I slowly started gluing it on with my cute little pink hot glue gun and just put the clip back on to keep the fabric secure. It went pretty smooth and the finished product looks fantastic on my microwave. Nice, right?

I bought the fabric at Walmart for $1.89 and I love that it has some texture to it (in the black) plus the light brown since I have all sorts of wood colors in my front room and kitchen.

My microwave actually is on a printer stand that was my step-brother's, years ago. I used to have an old table cloth on it to cover up the stuff on the shelves. I decided to make a matching cover though- I hemmed the edges of the fabric using my hot glue gun and made room to slip a rod in up top (the rod was a $3 tension one you twist until it fits inside- i sprayed the edges black).

It looks much better in real life. Seriously.
And because I just love how whimsical the fabric is, I decided I should put it on a canvas (again, hot glue). Why not! The canvas was in a two-pack and $15 at Michael's but I used a 40% off coupon. Hopefully it's not overkill. If I decide down the road that it is, I can always hot glue a new layer on, right??


Here's a before picture that I happened to take last month.

And my after pic. (please note the lemons.. love them! The vase thing was $10 clearance a few weeks ago) I also swapped out a kitchen chair for a saddleback barstool ($30 at Shopko). It takes up a lot less space but it's easy to bring up the other one if we need it. The curtains were a purchase from months ago that I never ended up using.

And to tie in my lemons.. I cut one in half (did I mention they're artificial?) and glued it onto a cheap plate (again from Shopko). (I also spray painted that little black vase thing up top- from dollar store)
I got the fruit ideas from: here Love her blog!!!

Last picture: Marci gave me the frames for free- I sprayed them black and in front of the glass I put in textured brown paper (like $.70 each at Michaels). And then a $2 pear, cut in half. Gives that area so much more definition than the old hot pads I used to have hanging there!

And there you go. I accomplished what I wanted and I'm thrilled with the results. Plus, there's nothing like spending money and projects to keep my mind off of Marci and Lock leaving. sniff, sniff

Do you like it??? (LOVE comments; puh-lease leave me one!!)