DIY custom lampshade

I wasn't quite sure what type of lamp shade that I wanted in the spare bedroom when I bought this lamp shade, but I knew that I did not want to spend a lot of money on it.  So here is my $11 lamp shade.  I went to IKEA and bought this lamp shade that comes flat and then you attach the puzzle piece ends together and then it becomes this perfectly cylindrical thing ($6).  Ignore the arm fat in the picture above.  I am thinking that I am going to be posting a weight loss "bridal bootcamp" soon to take care of that.  LOL.

So I took this piece of plastic shade and decided that I was going to decoupage some fabric on it.  I wanted it to still transmit light so I bought a shear fabric from the clearance rack at Joann's.  It was still $5/yd, but I only needed a half yard so I figured what the heck.

Step 1 - Lay lamp plastic flat, right side up.  Apply mod pod glue to the whole thing.  Then attach the fabric.  You need to be kind of quick about this so that your glue is still tacky.


Step 2 - Pull the fabric gently and smooth it so that there are no wrinkles.

Step 3 - cover the top of the fabric with glue and coat it until the fabric is fully saturated.  Smooth the glue in one direction making sure that there aren't any drips of clumps.  Let sit over night

Step 4 - After allowing the front side glue to dry you can flip over the piece.  Trim the edges neatly, leaving about an inch to wrap around to the back side.

Step 5 - Apply glue on the plastic and wrap the fabric around the back.  Apply more glue on the top making sure to smooth out all the wrinkles as you go.  Let the glue dry over night again.

Step 6 - Neatly cut the remaining fabric from the ends so that you can make the cylinder shape out of the plastic shade.

Step 7 - Assemble the shade

Step 8 - Cut ribbon for the top and bottom of the shade.  You can apply this on the inside or the outside of the shade depending on the effect that you want, but I wanted to cover up my frayed edges on the inside of the shade.  Apply a layer of glue to the plastic shade.  Use paper clips to secure the ribbon at approximately 4" on center and then apply glue over the top of the ribbon.  Make sure that you do not paint over the paper clips otherwise you will end up with globs of glue like I did.  Oh well you live, you learn.  Apply the ribbon at both the top and bottom of the shade and allow the glue to dry.

Step 9 -  Remove the paper clips and apply one more coat of glue to the ribbons.  Allow this to dry.

Step 10 - Assemble the lamp with the metal hardware that it comes with and viola you have a new custom lampshade.