Night lights

One little gem of wisdom picked up from another blog: use dim or dimmable lights around the changing table so late night diaper changes don't rouse the baby too much from overhead lighting. We had a few pendant lamps waiting to be used for just such an occasion, but needed to be tweaked a bit to go with the eclectic jungle/forest nursery theme were we loosely using as decor. Not wanting to fully commit these lamps to the cause for life, I created a stand-alone garland piece that can be lifted off when felt imitation trees no longer fit the theme of the room. Throw perfectionism out the door on this project - I didn't focus on uniformity of the leaves, the embroidery stitch or the leaf pattern and I think it turned out more cartoony that way, which was my intention.



1) Pop in your favorite movie - since we are not going for perfection - the movie is a welcome distraction during the hand sewing portion of the project (which it is basically all hand sewing).

2) Using different shades of green and one brown shade, I cut simple leaf shapes out of felt. Also at the ready are complementary shades of embroidery thread (see step 3).




3) Next I laid out various leaf cutouts on the lamp and then selected a middle leaf that touched all the others. This became the leaf that I sewed an outline around using embroidery thread, thereby attaching it to the other leaves. Note that I laid the pattern out on the lamp for size and shape, but didn't sew anything directly to the lamp. Repeat this all the way around the lamp and as far down as you want the garland to hang.



4) Once the pattern is complete it should be a ring of leaves (or whatever) that you can set on the lamp. Of course, variations on this include gluing the cutouts directly to the lamp, which would be faster.