6 Eclectic Blue Chandelier

You know when you get so busy working on a project and you just wanna finish it, and everything else you should be doing takes a back seat? Well this chandelier has been such a project. I think my car has suffered the most. My 4 kids have really taken a toll on it and mom has not been keeping up on it. So much that this morning I found two lost dogs in the street on my way to the Home Depot (of course). But luckily they had an address on their collar so I put them in the back of my Expedition and headed to their home. Their "mommy" opened the door decked to the nines...a beautiful, tall, blonde, very well dressed and put-together woman. When I opened the back of my car to get her "babies" they were enjoying snacks left by my kids. She said (with thinly veiled horror) "I'm sorry, it looks like they're eating your (pause and gasp) french....fries." They were spilled all over the back of the car by one of my kids, who and when I have no clue. My guess is her car doesn't contain any fries. Lucky dogs, a rescue and a snack.

But to the point of my blog, my newest project, which I call my new Eclectic Blue chandelier.....

                          


I used to have a West Elm chandelier hanging over the table that I liked, but it just kind of blended into the walls:

I love love love fabric and am always trying to find new ways to use it. I especially am fond of Amy Butler fabric which I used on this project. I also love wood barrel chandeliers, but I don't love their price tags. Like this gorgeous chandelier from Lamps Plus which is over $1300:

So I used this piece as my inspiration and went to work. I cut, glued, nailed and screwed wood:

Can you see that Diet Coke can in the picture? I am kind of addicted to it so it is part of the building process like any other tool.  Yummmm Diet Coke. Then I assembled, screwed together some more, painted, sanded, painted, sanded and painted again.

See that little hand in the painted picture? That is not a helping tool, that is a hindering tool. The kind of tool that likes to touch things when they are wet. But it is attached to a super cute little girl so it's ok.

Then I wired the whole chandelier....and it worked!! And then I cut out a lot of fabric, ironed it to super stiff interfacing, cut ribbon, ironed it to two-sided tape, and ironed it to the fabric. And then I hot-glued it to my frame. And then I asked my super helpful husband to help me hang it. And, voila! Here are some more pics:

I will add some tutorials about how I made this chandelier later this week. Now I've got to go get back to my real life projects, starting with that car. We don't want the dogs to escape to my house again looking for another snack.