ribbon and fabric chandelier: a solution to the cfl blahs

I think my favorite room in our house is probably our sunroom.  And, since it is such a great space for reading and hanging out as a family, it is at the top of my list of rooms to finish.  I am very excited to have finished the first project for this room, a ribbon chandelier.

Remember the epic fail I wrote about last week?  The one that was so bad, my camera refused to take a good photo of it?  {what can I say, my camera has good taste}

the hot mess revisited

 {Don't feel bad if you can not remember it, it was pretty terrible non-memorable.}

I fixed some of the problems with that project, and now have a lovely {if I do say so myself} chandelier.  I'd like to think that this light fixture deserves the title "anthropologie inspired" or maybe "anthropologie-esque".  At any rate, it is sweet, feminine, has loads of wonderful texture and so many pretty textiles that make me smile. 

My sunroom, like most of the rooms in my recently finished new construction house, has had a boob light.  Actually, my boob lights are nicer than most I've seen {aren't you glad that the word "lights" was in that sentence?}.  But, they are a bit generic and not-us, so I've been trying to think of a thrifty way to replace them.

What could be more thrifty than hitting up my fabric and ribbon stash for materials to make a new chandelier?  Three embroidery hoops + some hot glue + a bit of wire + plenty of pretty silk + ribbon + tulle + yummy beaded tulle and we have a pretty chandelier in our sunroom.  No rewiring required.

the cheerful blue and yellow pillows will be moving to a different room as more pink and orange get introduced to this room

I love the way that the pink silk {which fits perfectly with our new color scheme} makes the light glow.  This room looks so happy.  Bonus--the pink takes some of the odd-yellow out of the CFL bulbs that are in the fixture.  CFLs are great for the environment and the family budget, but, in my opinion, CFL light color has yet to be perfected.  I wasn't thinking about that issue when I chose the pink, just my color scheme, but the pink adds a really nice glow.

Environmentally friendly + pretty, what more could a girl ask for?

{and a side note, thanks to the CFL bulbs and the fact that the chandelier hangs a ways away from the light fixture, the chandelier is totally cool to the touch.  If it got at all warm, I would take it down, since, I really don't want my house to burn down.  If you make your own light-hack, please, please, please use common sense and keep an eye on the thing to make sure you haven't added a fire hazard to your home}

This project was very tedious. Even if I hadn't torn apart the whole project after the epic fail it would have been tedious.  But, luckily I did the project twice and learned from my mistakes.  I am pretty happy with my results, but still have some tweaking to do.  My plan is to make another ribbon chandelier later this week to cover the ugly fan-light combo. in my bathroom.  I'll be putting together a tutorial and sharing some of the mistakes that I made in versions 1 and 2.

I am joining these link parties: