Make a New Lamp Shade -- Tutorial

Today, I finally got around to a little repair job.  One of the lamp shades in our living room looked like this:

If you don't have kids, you probably don't understand how I could ever own a lamp shade that looked that way.  If you have a lot of boys, you totally get it.  In all fairness, I think I may have been the one who started the rip.  But my rip was miniscule.  Tiny.  Almost imperceptible.  I needed help from several kids to make it look like that.  It was time to put a stop to the rip.

You probably don't have an injured lamp shade, but if you want to update your shades, I will show you how I remade mine.  

You will need:

Fabric of choice (maybe 1/2 a yard)

glue gun

embroidery floss (I used dark brown)

hand sewing embroidery needle

3 buttons

scissors

My original shade was made with a crinkled, oiled kraft paper.  If your shade is paper, fabric or some other material that is easy to cut, it is time to make a pattern.  I just cut a straight line from to to bottom.

Next, I cut the shade off the frame around the top and bottom as close to the frame as possible.  My original paper shade was glued on and impossible to peel open.  After I carefully removed the old shade, I chipped off the remaining paper around the frame.

Now I have a clean shade frame and a pattern.  My original shade was so damaged that I had to tape it together, but it worked great as a pattern.

Now just lay your pattern onto your new fabric.  A stiffer fabric will be the easiest to work with.  I used a white curtain lining leftover from a previous project.  It had a lot of body and provided the look I wanted.  If you want to use a softer fabric and you are having trouble working with it, you might try either starching it or ironing on a lightweight interfacing.  You wouldn't want anything that will make it difficult to wrap around the frame, though.

Trace around your pattern, making sure to add in a fabric allowance to make up for what you cut off.  I added 1/2 - 3/4 inch at the top and bottom of the shade and about 1 1/2 inches on each side (where my vertical seam would go) so I would have enough to overlap.  Cut out your new shade.

The easiest way to work with the shade, in my opinion, was to put the frame back on the lamp.

I ran a bead of hot glue around the top of the frame and fit the new shade onto the frame.  Once you get the top in the right place it is much easier to shape and tighten the rest of the shade to the frame.  I left the vertical seam until I had the rest of the shade fitted.  Then I trimmed and fitted the seam so that it would look nice.  I used hot glue to "hem" the seam by just folding it over and gluing.

Once you are done with that, it should look something like this:

The vertical seam is glued down. The top and bottom are glued in place, but you still have a rough edge at the top and bottom.  If you need to do any trimming to even up the top and bottom, go ahead and do it now.  Just make sure you leave enough fabric to roll over the frame wire.

Next you will need to hot glue the rough edge around the frame to the inside.  If you have trouble getting it to lay flat, make small cuts in the fabric to help it roll over the curve.

Run a bead of hot glue on the inside of the frame, rolling the fabric and pressing into the glue as you go.  When you have finished the top and bottom, it should look like this:

Now you are ready to give it some character.  I ran a simple stitch around the top and bottom using dark brown embroidery floss.

Then I attached 3 rustic buttons using the same floss.

To finish, I embroidered a simple two stitch X between the buttons.

Done.

And the best part?  Everything I used was left over from previous projects, so it was practically FREE!  Woo Hoo!

All ready to snuggle up with a good book.

Have a great day!!

Angela