DIY Lampshade

I have wanted to do this project for a while and have had several different ideas which have ALL failed.  I had some dirty, stained lampshades I wanted to update. I searched spray painting lampshades and I tried that.  With sub below temperatures in Northern Michigan, that didn't work so well.

I had this really cool glitter tape and wanted to use that in a chevron pattern  but it made the lampshade too dark.  I have to have my light!

I then thought about decoupaging napkins or wrapping paper and thought I'd focus on that idea and see if I could make it work.  My only problem was I had no napkins or wrapping paper that would coordinate with my room.  No big deal, go to the store, right?  Well, I woke up to a snow day.  Not willing to go fight the roads so back to the drawing board.  Then BINGO!  What if I created my own paper and printed it and then modge podged it on??  So I set to work using some digital scrapbook paper I bought from Heart of Wisdom.  An 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper fit perfectly on my lamp shade.  Isn't it GREAT??? I LOVE it!

Now one of  dilemmas I had was how to keep the ink  from smearing when I added the modge podge.  I did a search and came up with these great tips here.  I chose the hairspray method since my mother is an artist and I remember her using this trick for years.  OK, another problem diverted.  I laid out my pages on foam board and sprayed them with hairspray. It does wrinkle a little bit but when you apply it you can smooth it out.

There will be a white line down both sides that will need to be trimmed off.

Take your spray glue and spray your first piece of paper.

Very carefully apply the paper to the shade as straight as possible.  Take a credit card and smooth the wrinkles out.

Repeat this step until you are all the way around the lampshade.  You will need to be very careful to match up the stripes.  A more random paper would have been better but I really loved the design of this one.  I won't lie I did have a hard time matching them as straight as possible.

Once you have the lampshade covered with your paper you want to put a light coat of Modge Podge on the paper.  If you feel like it needs another coat go ahead and reapply after the first coat is dried.

After the Modge Podge is dried,  heat up your glue gun.  I didn't want my rough edges showing so I bought a package of bias tape.  I hot glued the tape to the lampshade covering my rough edges as shown in the picture below.  Repeat with the top edge.

Put the shade on and enjoy your new one of a kind lampshade.  

I hope this inspires you to some of your own DIY creativity.  Remember, it's OK if it doesn't work the first time.  Most of my DIY projects need to be done more than once.

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