DIY Beaded Lamp Shades

I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts that we’ve been working on getting our guestroom set up.  Today, I want to share about the pair of lamps I found for the room.

 I found these lamps at Goodwill before Christmas and purchased them with the guestroom in mind.  Both lamps were priced at $15 a piece, which is kind of high for Goodwill.  Since I bought them on the first Saturday of the month, I only paid $15 for both of them. 

That’s still probably more than I would have liked to pay. These are really nice lamps though, and I was just kind of drawn to them.

Knowing that I still needed lamp shades for my new lamps, I went to my craft closet and pulled out two shades that I got during last year’s garage sale season.  I paid a quarter a piece for them and thought that I could get a little creative with them. 

To start this project, I first had to tear off the ugly fabric.

Second, I cleaned the glue from the fabric off the frame and spray painted it with this metallic spray paint.

Once the frame was prepped, I started the beading process. I already had beading thread, but I needed to buy some beads, so I kept my eye on the Hobby Lobby weekly ads. I waited for the week that beads were half off, and then I bought eight bags of these beads (110 beads per pack/sized 12 mm).

FYI: After I bought my beads, I found some here on Amazon for a similar price to the sale price at Hobby Lobby, but the Amazon size is smaller than mine (1,000 beads per pack/sized 6mm).   I also found these beads (480 beads per pack/8mm) here on Amazon .  If you really don't want to spend hours stringing beads, and you aren't opposed to spending a little more money, go here to find 30 feet of linked beads for $20.

Once I had my supplies, I was ready for the beading process to begin.   To do this, I first had to knot a piece of beading thread to the top of the lamp frame.

Once the knot was secure, I beaded the thread, like I would a necklace, the length of the frame.

Then, I knotted the end of the thread to the bottom of the lamp frame.

I repeated until I had beaded enough strands for the frame….

 I screwed the lamp shade onto the base of the lamp…..

…..turned it on, and watched it glimmer:)

In the end, each lamp shade cost about $5 a piece, and I really like the way they look in the guest room.