When designing a room for a client, or just a room in your own home and you just can’t find the right lamp you are looking for, or maybe it’s out of your budget, try making the lamp yourself.
Now you may be saying right now, whoa…I’m not good at crafts or electrical, or coming up with ideas, or any other excuse that comes into mind -why not give it the ‘ol college try…Rah!
I did not go to art school, nor did I study art or design until I was way out of my school years. I was studying to be an Elementary School Teacher. Amazing how life veers us down different paths! Anyway, my point is, you don’t have to have an art degree to attempt the following baseball lamp project. All you need is a baseball, or a picture of one so you have the design in front of you. The rest is just gathering the supplies: black acrylic paint, red acrylic paint, 2 small fine tip paint brushes with rounded tips, a paper plate or container to squeeze paint onto, container of water to clean brushes, rag.
To make this baseball lamp, I was looking for a small lamp that would mimic a baseball and fit on the nightstand in the sport theme room for the Parade of Homes I was designing. I had already made the basketball shade for the floorlamp that would be in the corner (see my post on that here) http://tayrose.com/2015/01/07/transforming-a-student-globe-to-a-basketball-floorlamp/ . I wanted to keep with the sports theme and I knew it would be almost impossible to find a football shape lamp, so fortunately, I found at a thrift store, the right size, color and shape. SCORE!! Even though the lamp had ridges, I didn’t care, it was the right shape, size and when I painted the seams and stitches, it will look like a baseball.
At first, I thought I would just draw the seams on the lamp with a felt tip marker, but the ridges on the lamp kept messing up the line so it was jagged, weak or missing all together as I drew, so I nixed that idea and wiped off the lines to start over. I knew my lines and stitches were not going to be perfect, nor did I want them to be, I wanted the lines to look painterly and hand painted. Those ridges proved to be very challenging in the end, and did I wish they were not there? Absolutely! I was on a time crunch, and the texture those ridges brought to the lamp, I kind of liked.
Once the seams were painted with a black acrylic paint, I took a small brush, some red acrylic paint and proceeded to just flick stitches along the seam lines. I had to stare at the photo of the baseball over and over again to figure out the way the stitches were sewn, for they were different on each seam. Are my stitches straight and perfect? no, are my seams perfect? no, but that’s ok, I was able to make a lamp that was just right for my design project, and once the Parade of Homes event was over, I could take it to the shop to sell. Even if it doesn’t sell, I can remove the paint and I have a nice little white globe lamp…it all worked out and I think it was a home run!
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Baseball lamp in sport room by TayRose Design