Fragile'

Ok I promised a tutorial for my leg lamp. I have wanted one of these lamps since I very first saw "A Christmas Story" . I loved it.

"It's a major award!"

Well looking around for ones of these they are expensive, IE 200-300 bucks! Too rich for my blood for a lamp I will put up for a month. So I got to looking I could make one. First stop Ebay, I found a "stocking leg" that was 28" tall for $9.99 with shipping it was $18.99. After a week I was the proud owner of a leg. Next was time to do some shopping.

First I stopped at Hobby Lobby for a base and black fringe. For the base I got an unfinished wood piece from the area near the build your own clocks. Regular price it was $2.99 but was 40% off. The fringe they sell by the yard and I got 2 yards and used all but about 6 inches. Also on sale for 30% off off $3.99 a yard.



I got the heels at goodwill for 99 cents. Just an FYI the leg wears a 6-6 1/2 and needs a 4 inch heel. Please do not make my mistake and get a 5 1/2 and have to nail the shoe on while acting like she is Cinderella's ugly sister cramming her foot in the heel.

Next was Wal-mart for a 3/4 inch dowel, a pair of thigh highs, a light kit and a lampshade. You may be about to get the lamp shade at Goodwill or other thrift stores for cheaper but mine did not have one and I was in a hurry to get her made.



You will also need heavy gauge wire and paint or stain. Tools you will need a 4 inch screw and a drill with bits and a saw.

Supplies in hand I begin. First I took the base out to the garage and stained it. You can paint it also but I had stain already.

Next I came back in to hot glue the fringe on the lampshade.


Next I failed to take pictures of but I took the leg to the garage and I cut the "sole" of her foot out. This is so you can thread the lamp kit thru the leg.

Next you will need to drill a quarter inch hole thru the bottom of the heel for the lamp cord to come out. It is easier to do this now and thread the cord thru before attached to the light.

 After giving enough room for you to be able to plug the lamp in you run the lamp cord thru the leg and put the lamp kit together per the instructions. It is very easy to do.

Now the next thing I did was drill a small hole through the now stained base for a 4 inch screw to go through.

Based on the size of the screw you are using you will need to drill through the high heel at the "sole" close to the arch of shoe. You also will need to drill a pilot hole thru one end of the dowel for the screw to come into.

Once you have all your holes drilled now you can begin to assemble.


When you put the stocking on the leg you will have extra at the foot. I just tacked mine to the "arch" area of the foot so it was out of the way.

I glued my stocking around the "sole" cut out and then cut a hole in the stocking so I was not tearing it up with screw.

Now I placed the dowel in the leg with the pilot hole side down. You will screw thru the base, the shoe and the leg to the dowel till the screw will not tighten anymore. at this point it should be about to stand on its own.

All you have left is to drill 4 small holes for the heavy gauge wire to go thru the top of the leg















Now I know this does not look pretty but it does the job and it is all covered by the lamp shade. If you have a better way go ahead I just wanted to be done and put it up! This is what it looks like from the inside.

Now all that is left is attach the lamp shade and stand back and admire!!!!

All in all it cost me around $45 to make and that was only that high cause I could not fine a cheap lampshade at the thrift store. I think that is a pretty good knock off and way better than spending $250 on it don'tcha think?

I am linking to 

Christmas Decorations

Ok so I may have mentioned that Hubs and I like us some Christmas decorations. OK we love to decorate for Christmas. We began out outside decorations last weekend. I know you should not turn your lights on till after Thanksgiving and we did not cause we finally finished the day before. It took us 6 days to get everything out, countless hours painting all the yard cutouts. Hello I started painting them in September! Ok so here is a picture over load...

I give you the Kopecki's version of Grizwald-ification=

Here is what is on the left side of the driveway. Hermie, a elf and Sam the Snowman telling a story

In the middle of the yard is Cornelius putting the lights on the tree, a stack of elfs putting the ornaments on, Bumbie putting the star while the head elf directs.

I peek of the window and the lights in the back.

Santa is talking to Rudolph and his girlfriend Clarice as Rudolph's nose glows.

Yes even the backs of them are painted!

Our flower bed

Just a little lamp that is in our front window. ;) 

All LIT up!

I had to slow the shutter speed down so it was not a blur.

All the Misfit toys that line our drive way and side walk.

Plus not shown is my front door wreath cause it is not done just yet and let my happy fall ya'll wreath get few more days use before it gets packed up.

So that is our outside! What do you think are we nuts? Next up with be the inside and a tutorial to make this.....

P.S. Sorry the pics are so big but I am too lazy to change the size and post the new codes for all the pics. True story

Whoa Momma

So alot has happened since I last post. We were staying with my in-laws for 6 weeks while our house was being built because I did to good of a job subletting our apartment in Austin and we had to move within 28 hours from me putting it up for lease. Now out in the country where my in-laws live there is no Wi-fi, so we had limited internet.

But on July 29th I turned 30 and was in a bit of a funk. We were living in my husbands childhood room and I worked and just nothing was in place that I thought should be at 30.

Our closing on our house got pushed back 3 weeks. But after all was said and done we closed and got all moved in. And here is a few pictures from the day before we closed.

Welcome home

Our breakfast

We changed out the fridge for a big stainless one

Love all the cabinets

This is the front bedroom

I have many more but we are in the process of painting, changing all the light fixtures and plumbing and knobs so I will do some before and afters. We love it and have so much room but we have not idea how we have filled 4 bedrooms after living in one bedroom apartments for the last several years.

So that is the Reader's Digest of the last almost 2 months. I have some plans to be a better blogger I promise!

Guess what we did?!?!

Well we did it.

We took the plunge.

We put our chips on the line.

We pulled the plug.

Yep we are officially in the process of building a house!!!

This is what our floorplan looks like basically. We are adding a couple walls to the dining room and making the study a four bedroom. We have visited the deco center which is a story in itself!! So this was the Hubs big b-day present(ha we signed the contract on his 30th bday!)

I promise I have several stories and pictures to share but I am pooped with the new job and all the house stuff!