300 circles of fabric on the lamp, 300 circles of fabric

While I've been focusing a lot of my home decorating thoughts on Conner and Nolan's room lately, I did find time to create a little piece of love for Elizabeth's room last week. When we moved into the new house, Elizabeth's room already had a hook hanging from the corner of her room. And when I suggested to my mom that we hang this old, ugly white Chinese lantern light from that hook my mom gave me a "you're crazy" look. 

ugly old Chinese lantern in desperate need of a make-over

But I assured her that I had big plans for that Chinese lantern and it wouldn't be an eyesore in the room. Via pinterest (the coolest website ever), I found a tutorial for jazzing up an old paper lantern. The tutorial was perfect for giving enough directions to make this little project but really, it wasn't hard at all. Get some fabric (and in my case, go back to the fabric store three more times because you totally underestimated the amount of fabric it would take), cut circles out of the fabric, and then hot glue those circles onto the lantern.

fabric circles

Mindless work really. I thought this would be a project that I could knock out during one nap time but in the end it took me about three nights to finish it (roughly 6 hours). And I'm not over exaggerating when I say that I glued probably at least 300 circles onto the lantern (which meant lots of burned fingers from the hot glue!). The finished product turned out really cute and Elizabeth loves it (so the burned fingers were worthwhile). And this is one project that I don't think you could mess up!

The finished product

And how it looks with the light turned on

Cost breakdown:
Chinese lantern lamp= already had so free, but I imagine you could pick one up for $10 or so
Fabric= 5.5 yards * $3 a yard (on clearance) = $16.50
Ribbon to hang light from= $1.50
Hot glue= already had it on hand
Total cost= $18.00

And this morning I had the pleasure of partaking in tea time with this princess under the light of the new lamp.