A sparkly + bedazzled vintage brooch lampshade

If gaudy, over-the-top and sparkly aren’t your style, you may not want to read (or look) further. If the repurposing of vintage jewelry would be deeply upsetting to you, please click away.

Otherwise, let’s take a look at the prettiest, sparkliest lampshade that I’ve ever seen!

The quest for dramatically embellished lampshades began when I spotted this amazing vintage pottery lamp at an antique store in Texas last January. I was antiquing with my sister and it took me two seconds to snap this cutie up. Then six months later I found a similar lamp on Etsy and ordered it for my husband’s bedside table. They’re a cute coordinating pair.

In my mind, I imaged the lamps paired with lovely faux flower adorned shades—something similar to this Anthropology shade that I’d been in love with for the better part of a decade:

Although I still loved that Anthro shade, it wasn’t exactly the right size or color combo for my room (and they also stopped selling it many years ago). What I really imagined was a lamp shade bedecked with handmade wool felt flowers and possibly some botanic-themed embroidery.

But then…

I pulled out my collection of vintage flower brooches last week for an Instagram post I was working on and the idea hit me—why not use the brooches for my lampshade?

I had already found the perfect shade for $1.00 at a local thrift shop and I figured it would be a fun experiment if nothing else. When I bought the shade, it was very dirty and had some stains, so I gave it a quick clean before painting on two layers of DecoArt’s Chalky Finish Acrylic Paint in “Primitive” (I watered the paint down and allowed it to dry overnight in between coats.

It took me a while to figure out how to attach the brooches to the lampshade. This is NOT a tutorial, but I did take some photos of the process just to serve as inspiration for anyone wanting to create something similar.

To begin, I used a piece of wool felt as a base, cutting it to fit one panel of the lampshade at a time. I wanted the shade to look as if it had been unevenly “dipped” into the sparkly brooches so I cut my felt accordingly—just a thin, imperfect border on the bottom of each panel.

Next, I gave each felt panel more texture by layering it with bits of floral lace and sequin-embroidered scrap pieces. It was lucky for me that I have lots of scraps and crafty things to work with. Being a hoarder does come in handy sometimes.

After the felt had a base layer of lace on top, I carefully arranged brooches and jewelry pieces until I was happy with how it looked. It was not a very technical process. I simply played around with the pieces until the color combinations and sparkle factor met my expectations. The last step was to hot glue each jewelry piece in place and then glue the entire panel to the lampshade.

I only had enough vintage jewelry for one lamp shade (I wasn’t willing to use most of the pins from my collection—some pieces were just too special to hot glue to a lampshade) so I’ll have to figure out something else for Sam’s side of the bed.

Well, there you have it: my over-the-top floral brooch embellished lampshade. What do you think, gaudy or gorgeous?!

Note: I did remove the pin and earring backings from most of the jewelry pieces with a pair of pliers before glueing them down. If this upsets you, just know that I mostly destroyed pins that were already broken or deformed. I also destroyed many pairs of vintage clip-on earrings. They look prettier on my lampshade and no one wears clip-ons anyways, so you’ll have to forgive me.

Vintage library-inspired book logs

Several years ago, before moving cross county, my husband and I purged our book collection for the sake of downsizing. We donated countless books that we had purchased for high school and college lit classes, not thinking about the fact that they were classics we may want to revisit someday. It’s hard to say I totally regret the downsizing, because most of the books were just inexpensive paperbacks that had taken quite the beating over the years anyways.

But over the past few years, I have been working on re-collecting all my literary favorites and must-reads by shopping secondhand for vintage hardback versions. The hardbacks I collect aren’t first editions or pricy finds—I typically pick them up in thrift stores for a whopping $1.00 to $3.00 each—but they are beautiful and have that lovely vintage book smell (it’s basically the smell of dust, right?!)

Stack of vintage books

My goal is to curate a library that is full of heirloom treasures that can be enjoyed for years to come while making old and neglected things loved and useful again.

I love that most of the books in my collection now were picked up secondhand. It’s actually a bit painful to think back over the past ten years and realize how many books I’ve purchased new when there were much more beautiful (and inexpensive!) versions out there. Especially because hunting for them is half the fun!

Last year, a few of my friends were discussing a really interesting idea on Facebook: keeping index cards in their favorite books to record each time they’d read it.

I thought it would be a brilliant idea to use in my library, especially in some of my books that were reread every few years by Sam or I (looking at you, Harry Potter!)

Of course, me being me, I wanted to get a bit fancier than index cards.

When thinking about libraries, my mind instantly jumped to middle school library days. Remember the cute manilla pockets and blue check out cards that were inside every library book?

A quick Amazon search led me to some inexpensive pockets, and I found plenty of printable library cards on Etsy, although the typical check out card didn’t really fit the bill. So I decided to create my own!

Reading log cards that look like vintage library due date cards

The printable cards are available for purchase from my Etsy store (as a digital download!) and I added columns for a start date, end date, and reader’s name so that they’d work perfectly as reading logs.

I printed mine on light blue card stock and made sure to print on both sides so that the card can be flipped once the first side has been filled (and additional cards can be added, if you’re a super bookworm!)

The cards would be especially cute to add to children’s books, as kids reread their favorites so often. It’s also a great tool to encourage kids to read— I think they’ll get a little jolt of excitement and a feeling of accomplishment each time they log a “complete” date.

If your family plans to save books to pass on to future generations of little ones, then a project like this makes them even more of a treasure.

I really wish I had a system like this in place years ago. It would be so nice to look back and remember how many times I’ve reread my favorites!

If you’re interested in organizing your library with these cute cards, it’s a very easy project. Just head over to my Etsy shop—Sunshine Life Digital— and purchase the digital download for the cards. You’ll also need to purchase some card stock in the color of your choice (green and pink are also cute and both colors were used in libraries back in the day!).

The document is two pages (front and back) to make it easier when printing. Just make sure to select the option to print on both sides if your printer offers it, and if not, you’ll have to figure out how to do it manually, printing one side at a time.

Each page equals four log cards, so grab some scissors and cut along the dotted lines. If you have a large library and are printing lots of cards, an inexpensive paper trimmer makes the job a lot easier (and your edges will be nice and neat!). I LOVE my Martha Stewart paper trimmer, which I’ve had for years now.

Double sided tape worked well for attaching the manilla pockets to each book. I wrote in book titles and author names by hand and simply slipped the card into the pocket!

I couldn’t be happier with how this project turned out, and I’m so excited to add cards to each and every book in my library (I’m tackling it a little bit at a time).

I hope you enjoy this project as much as I did!

Head over to my Etsy shop to check out the other digital products I have for sale.

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