This waiting around for baby to arrive is literally the worst part of pregnancy. I've always had contractions and some days they're just little annoyances and other days they're pretty strong and regular and then all just up and disappear. Most.Annoying.Thing.Ever. To keep from obsessing over every little sign of labor I set out to give a basic table lamp a fun textural update - inspired by this faceted pendant light project.
You'll need to make a crap ton of fortune teller origamis for this project. To start, you'll need square pieces of paper. Save your pennies and forget about buying origami paper - you can make your own out of cheap copy paper. I created (4) 4.25" squares from one sheet of paper. The easiest way to make this size is to cut off 2.5" from the long end of a piece of basic 8.5x11" copy paper - leaving an 8.5" square. Fold into fourths and cut - leaving four 4.25" squares.
With about a million squares cut I channeled my inner 9 year old self and started folding the fortune teller origamis. It sent me straight back to 4th grade husband guessing games....good thing those fortune tellers were way off. Although I complained that this project consisted of folding THOUSANDS of origami - it was actually only 125.
Can't quite remember how to make those fancy little cootie catchers? Well I've got you covered with this helpful video.
UPDATE: Oops - Looks like my memory was a little off and I forgot a step at the very beginning - you'll fold in fourths and then again on the diagonal so there will be 8 quadrants instead of just four.
For those that are sans video capabilities at the moment (yeah, I'm talking to you slackers at work) or those that just don't really like the whole how-to video thing this step by step photo collage might be more up your alley.
With a bunch of fortune tellers at hand I grabbed my trusty hot glue gun and got to work covering a basic white lamp shade - starting at the base of the vertical seam and working my way up and around.
Only two burns from that damn hot glue gun later and this project was in the bag.
I have to say....I love how this lamp turned out. And then you turn on the light....
And it's a thousand times cooler.
It's definitely got the texture thing down, but it's a fun, unexpected twist - perfect for a little boy's room. Plus, this little update only cost me about 30¢. 30 freaking cents!
This budget friendly and stylish update totally took my mind off of the tick-tock of the labor clock, but not for long because it was also a quick and easy project. So.....anyone have any ideas on what I can tackle next?
Ok, how did you EVER have the patience ... especially NOW ... to fold all those little buggers?! You really need to have that baby! Keep us posted on that! :)
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