Fiddy-Cent Lamp

In true ode to fiddy...I bought a lamp.

Just messing around, of course.


What I mean is...I was out garage-saling with Krissy (one of my besties, if you're new to MYU!)  at the end of July and I stumbled upon this lamp:

It was marked for one dolla. (Don't judge. A girl's gotta support her post title.) I was fully prepared to offer the full dollar (despite the girl's short stature, this was one heavy [read: nice] iron lamp!) until I said that to Krissy and got a dropped-jaw-chew-out. So...I offered 50 cents and the lady took it. She said, "we'll take it...because we're easy today!" Thanks...more than I needed to know, but I appreciate the lamp you paid a lot of money for!

While I completely loved the bronze finish, it felt a little too traditional for my place. So, when deciding what color I should paint it, I turned to Pinterest (*gasp*) and I saw this pin (I had pinned it earlier that day, in fact!). MORE inspiration from Five Days...5 Ways. (If you don't remember, her tufted ottoman was what set me ablaze to make mine last week.) I've been reading Abbie's blog and I.love.it. I'm stopping just short of proposing a marriage between My Yellow Umbrella and Five Days...5 Ways. Just kidding.

Kind of.

Seriously...go read her blog. Right now Just as soon as you finish reading this post!

Anyway, I went to my box full of spare spray paint and realized I had not one, but two cans of red. Perfect! First, I primed it...

Please note that the cord is covered in a plastic bag and painter's tape. I also covered the hardware where the bulb screws in with tape (not pictured) so as not to muck these areas up with paint!

 And then this gal got three solid coats of a fire engine red! MUCH more inspiring. And look at how the brighter color brought out the details in the iron! For the shade, I went to Target and bought the cheapest (and smallest) one they had. To dress it up a bit, I hot-glued some red and white grosgrain ribbon around the edges. I had the ribbon left over from this project, so it was free and the perfect extra detail!

 You may also note the block it's standing on. These were spacing blocks I pulled off of some cheap-y pallets (found on Craiglist). The other wood from the pallets ended up being too cheap-looking to use, but when I saw these printed areas, I jumped up and down like a kid on a pogo stick and begged asked Cowboy politely to remove them from the rest of the pallets. He is TOO kind. (Really...it DID take him awhile to disassemble the pallets for these little pieces!) I stained them with some leftover stain and wah-la! Free wooden typographic blocks.

Lamp: $0.50
Shade: $7.99
Ribbon: free (on hand)
Total cost: $8.49 (so I guess this post should be called "The Eight-Dolla Fiddy-Cent Lamp"?!)

Now go see Abbie and give her blog some love!

Have a great weekend, umbrellas! See you Monday!