Style de Bohême: Canopy Crown

Today I thought I'd show you another project from my guest/craft room.
But first, I'll show you the inspiration behind it.
This photo is from an issue of Flea Market Style magazine - the one published by Better Homes and Gardens, not the one of the same name by Ki Nasseur (which I also love!)

This is from an old issue of Country Living, from a feature called, "Double Wide".

Here's how I merged the two ideas together to create a very inexpensive and easy canopy crown.

The actual base, or crown was a curved shelf that I purchased at Goodwill.

It originally came from Home Goods (still had the sticker attached), and looked a little bit too shiny and new for the look I had in mind. So I dry brushed it with a little white paint, still allowing much of the gold and dark highlights to show through.

To make the curtain rod, I took a simple wire hanger (one of the sturdy ones) and nipped the hook off.

Next I measured the length of the curved section and nipped the coat hanger wire about 1 1/2 inches longer. Then I took needle-nose pliers to make a curl at each end. Afterward, I shaped the metal into a gentle curve to roughly match up with the curve in the shelf.

There was a lip in my shelf which I used to secure the rod, so after shaping, I did a quick check to make sure it would fit.

I had some gorgeous old net lace curtains stashed and decided to use them for my canopy, so I just threaded them onto the wire "rod". If you don't have curtains that will work, you could just as easily use a length of fabric or lace hemmed to create a channel for the rod.

Then I slipped the shirred curtains and wire under the lip on my shelf.

After I hung it up, I decided it was just too dark for the room, so down it came.

I repainted it, this time using a somewhat heavier coat of paint. For the first coat I used the "Cafe au Lait" shade that I'd painted 3 of the walls of the room with, and afterward, dry brushed on a little more white.