Lamps and light fixtures at Lamps.com 
Back in December Lamps.com invited me to participate in their Blogger challenge and I jumped at the chance. They sent each participant a plain white drum shade and challenged us to do with it what we wanted!
I stuck to the basics and updated an old, traditional style lamp that was housed in my living room.
The lamp was nothing special and I’ve been wanting to update it for a while.
So I took it from traditional to contemporary, and I think, WAY MORE appealing and eye-catching.

Here’s the before:

  And the after:
What do you think?

Now check it out all lit up:

My heart just went pitter patter!

And I hope yours did too!  If it did, I would LOVE for you to head over to the Lamps.com Blog and vote for my lampshade.  If I win, I receive a lamps.com gift card, and just for voting you have the chance of winning a $100 gift card too! 

I’m slowly working on taking my dark living room that has some key pieces that I really like (the mantle decor, my new lampshade) and infusing it with a little more of my funky personality.
I just lost the traditional style rug for a more contemporary one with a trellis pattern,
I ditched candlesticks and a fireplace container and painted the inside of my fireplace! I am working on a pelmet box for my picture window and will be switching out the drapes.  All inspired by a little lampshade!  I’ll be sharing the changes soon!

If you want to create your own fantastic shade, tailored to your style, this is how:

Materials Needed
Fabric
Coordinating Ribbon
Spray Adhesive
Hot Glue
Plain Lampshade  
1. Measure your lampshade.  Mine was 45″ in diameter and 9.5″ high.
2.  I purchased 1.25 yards of my zebra print home decor fabric and a spool of 1″ wide, brown ribbon.
Trim your fabric to size, making sure to add 1 – 2″ to the width – mine was 45″ wide by 9.5″ high.
3. Spray the outside of your lampshade with a light coat of the spray adhesive.  Do the same to the wrong side of the fabric.
4. Lay your fabric on a long surface and line the end up with the back seam of the lampshade. Slowly adhere the fabric to the shade, making sure to keep it lined up with the edges and removing any air bubbles as you go.
 
4. Once you’ve made it all the way around, fold your edge under about .25″ and secure with hot glue.  you can do this prior to attaching to the shade, and you are welcome to iron it in place to get a nice crisp edge.  I was fine with doing it on the fly and I think it turned out fine.
5. Now we want to secure the fabric to the shade along the edges.  I just slowly folded the edge back a bit and then hot glued in place.
 6. I also took an extra measure and used Mod Podge on the edges to keep the fabric from fraying.  It was probably overkill, but it only took 2 seconds.

7.  Next, we will adhere the ribbon to the shade.  Measure out a length of ribbon that is the same as the width of your fabric, again, mine was 45″.  Using hot glue, start at the back seam and lay a line of glue along the top edge of the shade – I recommend only doing 3″ strips at a time so that you can take your time and get your ribbon lined up nicely. TIP: Make sure to pull your ribbon nice and taunt so that it lays nicely. 

8. Go all the way around the shade, fold edge under like you did with the fabric, making sure to match your seam with your fabric seam, secure in place with hot glue.

9. Repeat step 7 and 9 for the bottom of your shade and you are done!

 {Voting ends 1/22}

Happy Creating! ~Kim 
I received a free lamp shade and a gift card for participating in the challenge. All opinions are 100% mine.

Pin It
Kim is a Marketing Director by day and Crafter/Blogger/Blog Designer by night. She lives with her husband, three beautiful children, and her dog and cat. You can also visit her design site, seven thirty three – – – creative blog design.  For even more seven thirty three fun, like her on Facebook or follow along via Twitter!