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Friday, January 7, 2011

Easy Lamp Makeover Tutorial

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So here's my old lamp that was in my craft room. I don't even know where I got it...I think it was in my grandparents' house, it got passed down to my parents, sat in their basement for 10 years, and then I took it.

Anyway, it's the perfect size for the room, but the ugly off white shade was just not right. I wanted a bright red to match the bedding.
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Solution? Spray paint...or so I thought. It did NOT work well and I didn't get the bright red I wanted.
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Plan B was to cover the shade in red fabric. First, I wanted to make sure the fabric was ironed. Any wrinkles in the fabric will never be able to be fixed once it's on the shade.
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Then I spread the fabric on a flat surface and slowly rolled the shade around the fabric.
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I traced the outline of the shade. Yeah, yeah, still using my pen to write on fabric, but I promise I have real fabric pencils now too! It's a bad habit to break!
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Then once I had the outline drawn, I enlarged the shape by 1 inch on each edge so there would be extra to wrap around the inside of the shade.
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I cut out the fabric and slowly wrapped it around the shade. Using tacky glue, I wrapped the edges of the fabric to the inside of the shade and glued. It worked best to only do a few inches at a time.
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After each section, I let the glue dry. If it works better, use paper clips or binder clips to keep the fabric from moving while it dries.
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When the shade was completely wrapped, I folded over the edge to give the overlapped area a finished look. Then I glued the edge closed.
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And here's my finished lamp!
It was super easy, took less than an hour, and only cost me a couple bucks for the fabric!
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The red fabric could not match any better!
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18 comments:

  1. Very bright and pretty...love the retro vibe to the whole room.

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  2. I can't believe how much better that lamp looks with the red shade!

    I have two lamps with boring shades I've been staring at for a while now. You've just inspired me to do something about it. Thanks!

    ♥ Rebecca Jean
    Midnight Maniac

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  3. This looks just perfect in the room!!

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  4. Cute! I love the pop of color it adds.

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  5. Great job Lisa! It turned out great! I love the yellow wall with the red and the bedding is too cute! Looks great! You're right about the pen habit being hard to break - I find myself using pencils on fabric instead of my fabric pens. Oh well!

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  6. OMGosh, your lampshade turned out soooo cute Ÿ You make it look so easy.

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  7. cute!! great job :)

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  8. Looks great! Love the bright colors in this room!

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  9. I have been wanting to try this. Looks great!

    -Rene

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  10. I love this! It looks so good. Now if you could please cover upholster a chair and/or couch, I could really use that.

    <3, New Follower

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  11. Wow-way to morph it into a completely different lamp-that looks awesome, I wish i had your creativity!

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  12. What a great makeover of the lamp! Beautiful!

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  13. Oh it looks just great! Thanks for stopping by ThreeBoys and leaving such a sweet comment:)

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  14. Thanks for the tutorial. This is exactly what I want to do with my lampshade. Now, I know how to do it!

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  15. Nice. I love red---it's such a wonderful accent color. Great solution to your lampshade!

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  16. Wow! Great job! I love that bright red. I'll have to think about whether I can use this idea on any of my lamps. Thanks for stopping by.

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  17. I have a lamp that was begging for this tutorial. I have never tried to do this...but I must do it soon!

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