when bad decisions go right: pendant light makeover

So I've wanted to add a bit of colour to the "dining" section of my kitchen for a while. It was pretty and serene, but kind of blah and certainly unfinished.

I started by adding my rug a couple of weeks ago, but I knew it needed a bit more. More specifically, that pendant light was the cheapest large option I could find, but needed some life added to it.

So I decided to dye it. At first I thought pink, then waffled to yellow, and then decided on pink again (who am I kidding, I'm such a pink girl at heart). I was inspired by Jenny's show and tell of the lampshade she painted with fabric dye instead of using  traditional bucket method. This was pretty necessary in my case because there is no bucket big enough to hold this puppy (she's bigger than she looks), and my bathtub is old enough that I'm pretty sure a dye bath in there would permanently stain it.

I ordered a few bottles of dye off of ebay, and experimented with intensities on some old fabric I had lying around. I even painted an old lampshade I knew I wouldn't end up using that had (what I thought was) the same fabric covering it. It went on like a dream, with no paint stroke marks and no differences in intensity from one spot to the other. Essentially, perfectly. I had considered a couple of more experimental/bold applications rather than just painting it all one solid colour, but when I saw how well it went on I kind of chickened out and decided that solid was the best way to go.

After mustering up my courage I set about painting:

Now unfortunately I have no pictures to show for what happened next. Mostly because I was panicking. I painted the bottom of the shade and it was a disaster. HUGE differences in colour from one area to another, MAJOR paint stroke marks, and nothing resembling pretty.

So I threw caution to the wind and painted the rest of the shade the way I'd originally intended to before I chickened out: something inspired by Amanda Nisbet's Positano silk in Pink Lemonade. Not exactly mimicking it - I forgot to even look at the pic before I started - but definitely playing off the general idea. 

And I liked it. It looked cool. But, unfortunately the bottom was still all pink, and when I put it up and turned on the light, something even worse happened. IT LOOKED LIKE MOTHER F-ING VEGAS in my kitchen! The light glowed through the dye and cast a neon pink glow over everything. Like florescent lights gone bad. 

Oh Lord. 

So I did what any sane person would do. I called my sister. 

A lot of laughing and panicking later, I grabbed my jug of bleach. I figured "what do I have to lose". It was either that or throw the light out entirely. So I painted the bleach on too. And you know what? It worked!! 

Here it is once the bottom had almost entirely faded back to normal:

YES!! Not only had I saved my light, but I also learned that I can diy the crap out of this thing with dye and still bleach it back to normal. This is dangerous, dangerous knowledge in my hands.

The best part? I kind of love it.

Isn't she purdy?!

I don't think it goes with the curtains, but I had been wanting to replace those for a bit anyway. If you're interested in buying them for a great price, let me know! They're in great shape and West Elm still sells them.

Anyway, what do you guys think?? Is she a keeper?