You know I’m super excited to have my new studio space but I have to say that there is one down side to having a basement studio and that is lack of light.

I can’t get enough light!

So I’m adding ceiling lights, task lighting and ambient lighting. Lights, give me more lights!

Sometimes I have every light in the place on and at other times I just need something low key while I watch a video on my laptop.

I decided that the corner by the day bed needed a lamp and I happened to have a pretty beat up lamp base on hand.

I’m not sure why I was drawn to it other than it kind of looked like an old trophy to me.

And it was tall and skinny so it wouldn’t take up a lot of space.

I brought it home and gave it a good cleaning all over and then removed the sheen with some steel wool.

Then I taped off the wood portion and painted the base, the top and the harp with Krylon’s Indoor/Outdoor Brushed Metallic in Bright Gold.

I let that dry and removed the tape and let it cure over night.

I then taped off the top and base and painted the wood portion with Krylon Shimmer Metallic in Black Cherry.

Once everything was dry and the tape removed I let it cure for a couple of days.

I like to let the paint cure so that in my normal clumsy activities I’m less likely to mess up the finish.

Then I rub some black Rub n’ Buff over the surface and into the grooves and wiped it off to help some of the details to stand out.

So, I have to tell you that I’ve had the lamp base hanging around here for quite some time waiting to find just the right lamp shade. Which NEVER happened.

I brought one lamp shade home from a local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store only to discover that it was WAY to big.

So one day I was shopping in a big box store that I normally stay away from when I saw a pretty little lamp shade for 12 bucks. Hmmm.

I brought it home and cut the  fabric covering off. I figure that for $12 I wasn’t out much if I hated what I was going to do next. Ya know?

After the fabric was off I sanded down the wire frame and painted it with the Indoor/Outdoor Brushed Metallic in Bright Gold and set it aside to dry.

I recently got a new horde shipment of vintage sari ribbon and went through that looking for the right fabrics and colors.

To create the lamp shade I just wound the sari ribbon around the frame anchoring it by wrapping it around one of the wire fame pieces every third section or so.

When I ran out of ribbon I tied on a new section and kept going until it was covered.

Now I just need to decide if I want to hang something from the rounded parts. I tried it with some larger crystals and hated it. I’ll keep my eyes open for an idea though.

The next project is that table. Ugh! That table!