July 23, 2013
I had a gorgeous ombre pink silk blouse that never really fit that well. Not being able to stand the thought of throwing or giving it away, I did what any normal person would do.... made it into a lampshade! The finished result was so feminine and soft. At night the light coming through the lampshade has the most beautiful pink glow.
I used DIY lampshade supplies which let you turn any piece of natural fiber fabric (silk, linen, cotton) into a lampshade. That means a 'past it' piece of clothing could potentially be upcycled into a lampshade. Cut it up and see how much fabric you are left with. Don't worry if you have a seam running through your piece of fabric, just work with it!
2. Peel back a small section of the adhesive styrene and apply to the reverse side of the fabric. Use a continuous motion of peeling the backing with one hand and smoothing the styrene onto the fabric with the other hand.
3. Trim the fabric to leave a half inch overhanging on all sides except one of the short sides.
4. Glue down the fabric overhang on the other short side with the fabric overhang.
5. Wrap your fabric & styrene rectangle into a cylinder and attach a bulldog clip on each end to hold it together. Rest one of the wire rings on the arms of the bulldog clip. Hold the ring in place using a couple more bulldog clips around the circumference of the ring.
6. Section by section, paint on the glue and fold over the wire ring. Wait until the glue is tacky, then use your molding wand to gently push the fabric up and underneath the wire ring.
7. Once finished with one end, flip the shade over and do the same for the other end. Note: be careful to place the top ring (the one with the three spokes) inside the lampshade so the spokes dip down into the lampshade.
8. If you wish to finish the edges with ribbon, paint glue on to the ribbon a section at a time and smooth it on. I used ribbon both inside the ring and outside, because the pale pink silk was translucent once I applied the glue and it looked a bit ratty. It really did help to finish it off nicely.
Enjoy your new lampshade! What unique material would you make a lampshade out of?
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