When I found this seriously trashed lamp, I immediately had a revamp vision that involved lots of white, pea green, red and turquoise ribbon. And some spraypaint. And some mushrooms and snails. And it was going to look so wonderful and adorable sitting on Hazel’s little red dresser when we move home and sell all of our cheap, boring Ikea dressers.

Two months later I’m still at a standstill because I cannot find the perfect, white, cylindrical lampshade – at least not at the right price. I will continue my quest, but in the meantime this really adorable Ikea shade that I’ve kind of been coveting went on sale, so I snatched up the biggest size offered. It’s not quite right for this base, but works for now and will make a lovely floor lamp when the ribbon-shade-project is complete.

Upon getting it home I realized that there was no way to get the new shade on the lamp without completely un-wiring the whole thing to get it onto the base, and even if I could pull that off it wasn’t going to fit securely without a little piece of hardware that I did not have the patience to walk two blocks and get. After a quick eyeball of the lamp parts I realized that lamp wiring is the most simple thing ever – it took me about a minute and a half to take it all apart, another two minutes to secure the shade with green electrical tape (so classy), and another two to wire it all back together and put it on the dresser.

Not awesome, and not what I have in mind, but I think it’s rather adorable and will work just fine for now.

I suppose another color would have been more complementary, but you don’t see it anyway and green happened to be the color of the roll sitting six feet away from me.

Nothin’ to it – two wires and two screws. Now that I know how simple it is, maybe I’ll try undertaking some of the lighting-from-scratch projects I’ve fantasized about. I’ve always been afraid of projects that could potentially blow up in my face.

It’ll do for now :)

lamp – free
birdie shade – 14.99 at Ikea
wiring lessons – many childhood years of taking apart my remote control cars and rewiring them to run backwards
bird and apple puzzles – here
“creation of the animals” icon – gift from scott & alex
pressed flowers and teddy bear – handmade by granny anne
mushroom birdhouse – a buck at a dollar store
bird placemat – 99 cents at target
sock zebra – handmade by elizabeth
vintage charlie brown books – my husband is 32, so that makes his childhood books “vintage”
ultrasound photo – five bucks… the only part of my canadian prenatal care or birth that cost us a dime :)

Also, thanks to the lovelies who featured me on their blogs here and here!

Listening: not a thing – blessed silence of a sleeping/teething child
Reading: The Coal Tattoo by Silas House
Working on: a batch of pendants, and baby gifts, baby gifts, baby gifts…