DIY Little Girl Lamp Shades

As most of you know, I am a nanny for two girls, ages 5 and 7.  The girls are in the process of getting new décor for their bedrooms, and their mom asked me if I could find or make lamp shades to match the new décor.

The youngest is a girly-girl, and her room has lots of pink in it with fashanista accents. This is how her shade turned out......

The oldest girl has more of a funky look to her room and just got blue and black zebra bedding.  Goig off of the blue and black zebra theme, this is how her shade turned out.......

To get these shades to look the way they do, I first went to Goodwill and found two plain white shades for $3 a piece.  Then, I went to my local craft store for the following items: scrapbook paper (two pieces for each lamp) was $59 each, ribbon was $1 for each spool and fabric trim was $3.49 a yard (one yard for each lamp). The supplies for the lamps ended up costing about $7 for each lamp shade. 

To begin transforming the shades, I first covered the shades with scrapbook paper.  Then, I hot glued the paper to the edge of the shade and cut off the excess paper. Next, I glued the trim around the bottom of the lamps. Lastly, I added ribbon to the top of the lamps and made a bow to embellish each lamp.

The girls were really happy with the new lamp shades.  I’m still on a Goodwill hunt to find the perfect lamps to go with the shades.  I have four really great Goodwill’s that I browse all the time, so I’m sure it won’t be long before I find the perfect lamps:)

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.

Ruffle Ribbon Lamp

           A while back, I transformed these Goodwill lamps seen here and here into functional lamps for my home.  Around the same time, I came across this post at Big Lives and was inspired to create a similar lamp for our master bedroom. 

            I wish I had a before and after pic of my lamp, but I forgot to take pictures before and during this process.  Using an ugly $2 lamp base from a garage sale, a $1cream lamp shade from Goodwill, leftover ribbon and spray paint from previous projects and my hot glue gun, I was able to make this lamp for $3.  I spent $4 on the ribbon for a previous project and $2 on the paint, so this project would cost someone $9 at the most.

            This project was easy.  All I did was form ruffles with my ribbon while hot gluing it to the lamp shade.  I used two kinds of ribbon, forming five layers of ruffles.  Lastly, I spray painted the lamp silver.  I think it looks pretty good on my dresser.  It adds to the vintage feel of our bedroom.  What do you think?  Not too bad for $3 huh?  Gotta love repurposing someone else’s junkJ