Lampshade DIY

This was the first project I ever wanted to tackle when I started decorating the baby's nursery last year, but I kept pushing it back. You could say that this project was the reason why I started Thursday is Craftsday so that I could FINALLY finish it!

I bought the lamp + lampshade at Deseret Industries for roughly $4. I took off the original fabric from the lampshade so there was only the skeleton left. After MUCH consideration as to what the lampshade should look like, I decided to go with this tutorial and look:

Except my lamp didn't have many vertical prongs, so I made the scraps of fabric connect to the base and top of the skeleton (the scraps go up and down instead of side to side).

I used ribbons and scraps of fabric I had that correlate with my daughter's bedroom theme (green, pink, purple, and white). I cut them a few inches longer than the length of the lampshade...

However, I found that some fabric pieces were much thicker than others and thus needed a LOT more room to tie the ends. My rule of thumb was "if you feel like it's long enough, add another 2-3 inches" and even with that rule of thumb, there were some close calls. I had a few scraps of fabric I couldn't use because I cut them just an inch too short of what I needed.

Also, some ribbon is very slick and will start to untie itself. So leave PLENTY of room in case you need to double-tie a knot.

The finished product! I trimmed the edges so they were uniform, both on the top and the bottom. The best part about the style I used is that I can always add more pieces of fabric and/or ribbon if there are too many gaps!

(Bird's eye view. See how nice and trim it looks?)

This is what the lamp looks like when it's turned on. I was surprised that there weren't a lot of lines across the room. Maybe it's the light bulb I'm using? It gave the perfect amount of light, even with all of the gaps in between fabric pieces.

The color scheme fit perfectly for her room and it looks super cute. :) 

My baby girl can't take her eyes off of it! I'll need to move the lamp to her dresser so she won't be within reach of it...

So here's the scoop. I would actually rate this project a 3 out of 5. Why? It took me a few hours to do compared to my previous projects, between cutting the fabric and tying the knots. Also, the knot-tying part was VERY frustrating when you think you have enough length in your fabric, go to tie it, and find that you're just short of being able to leave ANY slack at all, making it impossible to tie. 

It didn't help that my daughter was trying to pull all of my fabric off the desk while I was tying knots... So that could be why it took me a few hours to make instead of, well, 30-40 minutes. ;) 

This project was still easy enough to accomplish while, say, watching a movie (which is what I did.)