Let There Be (Beautiful) Light

I have been meaning to post pictures of the chandelier my mom gave me money to buy for Cora's nursery, and I keep forgetting.  Since I finished painting several months ago, I have been saying that all the room still needed was a chandelier and it would be done.  Now that the chandelier is up, I want to get a black and white area rug.  But that isn't a priority, and her room is as done as I'm going to let it be for now.  Every other room in the house is begging for my attention.

It has actually changed a little since I took this picture five weeks ago.  There is now a small table in the corner next to the big stuffed lamb, but I am too lazy to go back upstairs and take a new picture, so you'll just have to use your imagination.  :-)

Speaking of light, I just finished a project for my friend Rachel that I thought I would share.  Rachel is letting me help her with some home decorating projects.  Really, she is allowing me to use her as a guinea pig while I explore my interest in helping others to decorate.  Before Christmas she let me walk through her house and give my honest opinions about things, which most people really can't handle.  We talked about ways to incorporate pattern into her living room, and she agreed to let me recover a lamp shade with some fabric that we chose together.  A yard of fabric, a few sticks of hot glue and... voila!  Check out her new lamp shade!

It was hard to get a picture of it lit because it doesn't look at all in the photos the way it looks in real life.  But you get the idea.

This is at least the third lamp shade I have recovered.  I seem to recall doing at least one other one, but I can't remember what it was for.  Anyway, I have pictures of the other two that are in my own house:

I can write a tutorial sometime on recovering lamp shades if you're interested, but right now I've got another project to go tackle while I have some peace and quiet.