if perchance you have been lying awake at night, tossing and turning... fretting and fidgeting. thoughts of unsightly light cords dingly dangling in your nest, keeping you from a restful night. fret not any longer dearest reader, for help is at hand.
however, just a note, if perchance you do not lie awake at night with such thoughts whirring around your little cogs, then perhaps you may care not to read any further. this is 'a-okay' with me. it is also 'a-okay' with me if you would still like to read on despite not having had lost sleep over your light cords. all are welcome, one and all, all and one, sleep or no sleep...
and so, an easy peasy, lemon-y squeezy, solution to your sleepless nights, no medicine from over the counter required. just a nice healthy dose of DIY crafting during waking hours will surely set you right for bedtime when it next rolls around
if you have your matchsticks in place, then let us begin...
some cords are tres ugly, others not so, quite often we are left with very little choice, the lamp is the thing we fall for and therefore the thing we think of first. take your newly found lamp home, dingle dangle it from the little corner you require lighting up, step back, admire its peachy ways, only to have your little heart sink. "well darn and dash it. how dare that tres ugly cord hang around for, distracting from the peachiness of my lovely lamp?!" no doubt you exclaim to yourself. and this in turns leads to pondering ways to disguise ugly light cord pronto. and when you can't, well we all know, the spiral affect will begin and hence you find yourself, tucked up in bed, sleep won't come because your cogs are filled with ugly light cords mocking you and poking you awake.
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a patchwork affair
* take various fabrics of your choosing and cut into strips of not more than 3/4 of an inch wide. think small patterns so they show, big patterns just won't be noticed.
* hang your cord up from a hook to make it easier, rather than lying it on a table and get all messy and in a state which may lead you to not feeling calm and collected in your DIY crafty moment.
* carefully with a small paint brush and some mod podge (or any other fabric glue) cover around 6 inches of your cord with a light coating of glue, starting right at the top, near the bulb-y bit.
* take your first strip and do a nice carefully neat wrappy bit and then making sure you have the fabric strip at a slight angle continue wrapping around and down the cord. you must keep it at an angle, if not you will go around and around the same piece and end up with a large fabric doughnut at the top of your cord and still the ugly cord doing what it does best, distracting from your peachy lamp.
* when you have finished one strip, be sure to give a little extra glue to the end and then start the next piece, stopping to add glue every now and then to your cord as you travel down it
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a stitched affair
this is a nice woven cord, but you could use it on a regular cord also. i found this lovely bright red cord, rushed home, hung it up and then alas and alack, realized its amount of redness just was not working well. however i did wish for a dash of red and so a few feet down the cord i wrapped some vintage cream curtain lining and did a whole load of natty stitching in different coloured thread. it took a little while and several cuppas but this made a most pleasing appearance in my books as it matched rather jauntily with the lampshade i had made... thus worthy of spent time and cuppas.
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a non patchwork affair
just like the patchwork number up above except done from all the same fabric. here i used my prized bit of fabric found in china town in San Francisco. i used the majority of it to make a 'good luck' frock and the left over scraps are being eeked out on various other projects like bags and cushions. this light cord was the generic black plastic sort which are standard when you buy a very generic clip on lamp. after my wrapping was done, i took a little bit of my vintage woven ribbon (also from San Francisco), i treasure above all other woven ribbons i own and made a handy dandy 'keeper of the cord in place thingy' to avoid being attacked by the cord dingly dangly-ing above my head
and voila! no more tossing and turning, no more fretting and fidgeting and no more blearghy looking light cords distracting from peachy lamps. yippee!
footynote: perhaps you are thinking some images are rather blurry and Tif's not up to scratch, indeed that maybe so, but i like to think 'tis blurry eyesight from lack of sleep due to pesky light cords and nothing to do with my pants photography today
