Lampshade Tutorial

Some of you have e-mailed me to ask me to do a lampshade tutorial. Well, it just so happens that I had another lampshade I wanted to do for our music room/office, so I made sure to remember to take step-by-step pictures when I finally got time to tackle it.
You'll need: 1 lampshade frame, fabric craft glue, or hot glue gun, braid, trim or fringing according to your liking and paper for making a swatch.
First up, you'd want to cut out swatches of fabric for the divisions on the frame. Make sure you leave 1cm extra along the sides for glueing and folding. You can trace the shape on a piece of paper and use it repeatedly to cut the swatches out, this way all your pieces will be nice and even. Then you'd glue the swatches onto the frame, piece by piece, making sure the fabric is pulled tight on all sides. This is what it looks like when all the pieces are glued on.Then to make it look better, glue on braid or fringing of your choice. I used dark brown biased binding for this one, (below) and off-white pom-pom fringing for the bottom and top and braid for the sides for this one. (below) Here it is, all finished and lit up at night. Easy peasy, right?

Touches here and there

Life has been hectic around here with many guests visiting and in my limited spare time after doing all that is needed to be done for daily living, I managed to squeeze in a few small projects and touches here and there. This linen cushion cover (the middle one)I made which I adorned with French words really creates an atmosphere that I like, I think I'd like to do a few more of those when I can. I also made a few more cushion covers for cushions on our super comfy new couches. These new couches are in an oatmeal or white sand colour which is the hue of vintage linens. I think it's a light enough colour if you don't really want white. Any colour scheme can go with this colour. They remind me of the beach when paired with blue and white. They are much larger in real life than in photos for some reason. In the hallway, I've finally decided to decorate with chalkboards made out of old picture frames. I really enjoyed making them. The two on each side look like menu boards, but I didn't write any menus on them, the writings are two French Bible verses from Psalms. One says: "Blessed are those whose trangression is forgiven and whose sin is pardoned" taken from Psalms 32:1 and the other one says " Your word is the lamp unto my feet and light unto my path". Psalms 119:105. The one in the middle says, "Pray without ceasing" in French. I just love the fanciness of French words.In the laundry, I've added a few chalkboard pieces as well-- again, digging out old picture frames-- On the shelf, I've decorated with bits and pieces that are laundry related. I love the way they go with each other, they are both decorative and usable. On top of the cupboard.............. "Washed clean, white as snow." That's laundry related too, lol! I like how they remind me of how Christ died so that I could be washec clean and white as snow. And........you'd be right to say I've been very fond of chalkboards............wink!

Pierre de Ronsard Tree Rose

This is what my Pierre de Ronsard (Eden Rose) Weeping Standard (Cascading Tree Rose) looks like on a sunny day. One thing I noticed is that its flowering power is getting stronger every year. I can just see the flowers cascading down more and more as it gets older and stronger each year; or at least I'm excited and expectant of that happening. This is what it looks like against a cloudy sky, on a different day. Thank you all for your lovely comments in my last post, I appreciate and read each one of them. I have been so very busy deadheading, fertilising and putting manure down in the garden. I'll try and visit you as soon as I can. Have a good week, everyone.