Awesomesauce & Asshattery

What do you get when you cross an old Ikea Storm lamp with a broken bamboo blind?

a festive warming glow to illuminate the dining nook…

here’s how to create your own burnished beacon with bits from the storage room:

I snagged our munchkin-and-dog-attacked Ikea Storm lamp & a broken bamboo blind I had been saving until inspiration struck…

I then removed all of the hardware & thick bamboo end pieces from the blind, placed it flat on the floor & plugged in the hot glue gun

once the glue gun was ready I put the lamp on top of the blind…

lined up the ends…

applied a line of glue to the edge of the lamp shade…

and rolled it over the blind

I continued applying glue & rolling until the entire lamp shade was wrapped in bamboo

then trimmed off the excess blind…

& glued the ends together

et voila…hmmm…unfortunately my blind was not tall enough to cover the whole lamp but as I’d already thought of a clever solution I simply carried on…

I grabbed the remaining chopped bit of blind & dabbed some glue on the sliced strings to keep it all together…

then wrapped it around the top of the lamp & temporarily secured the ends together with a couple of twist ties

as the top of the lamp shade is curved I couldn’t simply glue gun it without making a huge bloopy mess so I figured…why not stitch it together?

a bit of embroidery thread & thick needle did the trick on the ends but would it also work to secure the bottom edge of the bamboo?

Absolutely! *with a great deal of swearing, a pair of tweezers, cramping fingers & a blanket stitch

As a bit of extra fanciness I chopped the original thick bamboo end pieces of the blind to size & stuck ‘em around the top of the lamp

+ one to cover the unsightly stitches on the inside

and my groovy new corner lamp was finally ready for action!

*and it looks splendid with our refurbished dining room table!