Shabby Fabric Chandelier

Source: crafteronabudget.blogspot.com via Kristina on Pinterest

I have been thinking about a light fixture for my bedroom for awhile now. Right now, it is

just a plain white ceiling fan, but I wanted something more unique than that.

As I was browsing through ideas for a DIY chandelier, this beautiful photo caught my eye.

I loved the look of this shabby chic style fabric chandelier-and I hear this particular

one is located in Paris. And, I was inspired to make something like this for my 

bedroom-but on a much smaller scale. 

So, I went to Scrap for Art (my favorite scrap supply store) and looked to see what I could find.

 I was so excited it cost me only $6 to fill up my bag with everything I'd need to create one

of these cool light fixtures. 

Here's what I used for my project: 

- embroidery hoops in 4 different sizes

-scraps of fabric in 4 different colors and textures

-low temp glue gun

-ribbon

-fabric scissors

-thread

First, I cut strips of fabric about 2 in. wide and 12 in. long, not

worrying about them being perfect-the shabbier the better.

Then, I hot glued the strips next to each other onto each embroidery 

hoop. 

Then, I tied 4 even lengths of thread around the largest hoop to 

connect it to the next smallest hoop, and repeated until all hoops

were connected. (Wire would also work for this).

Finally,  I glued ribbon to the edge of the largest hoop to cover over

the tops of the strips where they were glued to the hoop.

And I was done! 

I plan on hanging my chandelier in my bedroom after removing the 

fan blades of an outdated ceiling fan. I was happy that chandelier

inspiration led me to come up with a really thrifty and artistic solution
to updating my lighting. Not bad for only six dollars, huh? 

Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for checking out ReMadeSimple! 

Linking up with these parties.

Guest Post: Paper Mobile

Hello everyone!
I'm happy to introduce my first guest post from Sarah at Renewed Upon a Dream--I am guest posting over at her site today! We both have fun repurposing uses for embroidery hoops today. Hope you enjoy them today!

Hello!  I'm Sarah  I blog over at Renewed Upon a Dream.  I'm so excited to be here guest posting for Kristina!  I LOVE her blog.  Everything she posts seems to be amazing, and her photography is always wonderful.  Wouldn't you agree?  So, I'm super happy to be here today, sharing with you a little project that I did for my cousin who is having her first baby in about a month.  Yesterday on my blog I shared some other little gifts I made for her, but now I'm sharing a pinwheel mobile that I presented her with this past weekend.

I really wanted to try to make a mobile for her, but I pretty much had no idea what I was doing.  I saw a photo recently of some cute pinwheels propped up in some grass for spring, and I thought they looked so cute & would be lovely hanging as a mobile.  It seemed easy enough to create so I went for it.

The supplies I needed were pretty inexpensive:

• Large embroidery/sewing hoop
• Spray paint
• 4 sheets of double sided scrapbook paper
• Some kind of string or twine, I used stretch magic jewelry string
• Hot glue
• Buttons, pearls or whatever you like to put in the center of each pinwheel (I have pictured pearls, but they didn't work with my string, so I switched to buttons)
• Tape

To get started on my project, I first spray painted my embroidery hoop.  I wanted it to be white, and I had just bought a regular wooden one at Michael's.  If you wanted to skip this you could also purchase a colored plastic one if you prefer.

Then I got started on making pinwheels!  I cut my scrapbook paper into 5 inch squares.

I then found the center of each square by measuring 2.5 inches in.  I then cut from each corner, in towards the middle of the paper where I marked.  I tried to cut pretty close to that dot, maybe about a half inch from it.  You want it to be close enough to make a good pinwheel, but not so close that it's going to rip when you bend the paper over.

Once I had my cuts, I folded one corner of each side towards that dot in the middle and taped them together.  I used two pieces of tape, one on the bottom & one on the top.  I was careful to fold it over in such a way so that it wasn't creased, but almost, so that it would stay & lay properly.  If you do this it will probably take a little trial & error, it did for me.


I soon had a bunch of pinwheels all over my table.  I went through each of them & cut off the access tape.

Next I punched a whole in the middle of each pinwheel.  I did this with a little hole puncher I had, but you could probably use a sharp needle too if that's what you have.  I then cut my string.  I cut 8 strings total.  4 were a little bit shorter, and 4 a little bit longer.  On each of them, I strung two pinwheels.  One a little less than halfway from the top, and one at the very bottom.  I secured each pinwheel with a button.

As I made progress with this, I taped completed strings up to my ceiling fan, just to kind of see what they would look like.  It was so fun working with pretty pinwheels above my head!

A couple of days later, once my spray paint was dry, I started attaching my pinwheels to the hoop.  The string that I used is very slippery, so it doesn't hold a knot very well.  If yours does knot well, you can probably skip most of the hot glue.  I attached the 4 shorter strings of pinwheels directly to the hoop.  Then I attached two strings across the loop, so that they crossed in the middle.  I attached the 4 longer strings of pinwheels to those strings going across the loops.  I guess it's kind of hard to explain, so here's a picture, although it's still hard to see, hopefully this helps.

I hot glued every string at their tie on point for extra reinforcement.  Then I attached a couple pieces of yarn to hang it from, and I was done!

How cute is this!?  I really love it.  I kind of want one in my home & I don't even have any babies!

Pinwheels are so fun & spring-y!

Have you ever made a mobile before for a baby.  What do you think of making one with pinwheels?

I really hope you liked this project.  It's been baby-mania this month over on my blog.  My friend is pregnant too & I made her a baby afghan & refinished a dresser into a changing table for them!  Check 'em out if you're interested!  Thank you so much Kristina for having me here!