a map! and a lamp! (that doesn't work!)

I headed over to Austin's City-Wide Garage Sale a few weeks ago and found this gorgeous, vintage, pull-down map.  I don't remember exactly how old the lady told me it is, but it is older than me.  (Some city is on the map that changed it's name in the early 80's.)  It has beautiful, bright colors and is pretty giant - a perfect addition to the sadly neglected dining room.

I love the graphics on the bottom.

back in the U.S.S.R.

I've also been working on some sort of ceiling lamp for the living room.  I got the idea from Amanda at Our Humble A(bowe)d and she stole it (I mean, borrowed nicely and gave credit) from some $600 British lamp. (I actually really like that one and I think I'll add it to my "for when I win the lotto" folder.)  

(the $600 version)

I took a heinously ugly $2 lamp shade from Goodwill and took the shade part off leaving only the frame on top.   I looked for the biggest one I could that had a flat top, so the bulb would hang at the top of the lamp, not be recessed down to hang in the middle.

(the part I ripped off)

I took some wire mesh (called hardware cloth, like this from Home Depot) and replaced the shade I took off.  It took a little muscle and finagling to keep it straight and secure it on, but it wasn't that hard.  So, for about $7 total, I had a new lamp shade.

Then, I forced Larisa to search for sticks with me outside (I'm a horrible sister, it was pretty much in the middle of the night) and then hung them, mobile style, inside the shade.

I bought some little birds from Michael's for a dollar or so apiece and used hot glue to attach them to the sticks.  Then I took a cord (with a wall plug on the end) and a bulb kit and forced Campbell to do a little electrical work.  I used a few hooks to hang it all from the ceiling, taped the cord going down the wall (so I could paint it) and plugged it in.

(the pictures I took before I hung it up came out a little blurry - I'll try to get up and take a level photo)

I'm pretty proud of my cord hiding job... I put it up against the molding of the front door and I think it's about as unobtrusive as I could get without rewiring the ceiling.

So, there we go... If you're interested in the details, I'd go back to the original tutorial from Our Humble A(bowe)d.  She took much better pictures than I did.  And... she probably didn't trip a breaker when she plugged in the cord with live wires at the end so she could measure exactly how long to make that cord and the live wires touched each other and sparked and now that outlet doesn't work anymore and the problem is she lives in an apartment so she has to get the maintenance people to come and do it for her and so she doesn't even get to enjoy the light.  

I mean, I didn't do that either... I'm just saying she probably didn't do that.