I never knew I’d care so much about a silly lampshade. I mean, it’s a lampshade, for crying out loud! But there I was, staring at a normal shade to sit on top of an old Eiffel Tower lamp I’ve had for ages, and I knew “normal” just wasn’t going to cut it. So I took to Pinterest to see how I could spruce an old shade up a bit.

And then I saw it: my inspiration for the lampshade.

The blogger answered questions about the project in the comments, but didn’t really give any directions in the post, so I had to wing it. Luckily, it was super easy and didn’t have any sewing involved. I took pictures along the way just in case you want to make something similar. Oh, and you can definitely make this during nap time; I think it took me around 30 minutes once I had everything together!

ADVERTISEMENT

Supplies needed:

lamp shade
hot glue gun
scissors
ruffle fabric trim (around 8-10 yards)
flowers (optional)

Directions:
I started at the very top because I was picky about the placement for that particular row of ruffles, but for the second and subsequent layers, I started at the bottom and worked my way up. It was easier that way so I wouldn’t have to mess with holding a ruffle up each time. The whole process, while slightly tedious, was very easy and went by pretty quickly.

I wrapped the trim around the shade where I wanted it to go, and cut it just where the ends overlapped each other. Then I got hot glued the top of the trim to the lamp shade. I only used a few inches of glue at a time and pressed it into the fabric of the shade, rotating it as I went along. Then I just repeated that technique for each layer until the plain lampshade evolved into pretty, flowing layers.

The seams weren’t always even, but that was okay with me. I just trimmed them when I finished and I made sure the seams faced the wall.

To pull the whole look together, I hot glued some flowers (they had stickers on the back from the scrapbook section at Hobby Lobby), onto the lampshade.

And, that’s it! It was seriously easy and I’m still totally smitten with how it turned out. I’m trying to figure out where I need another ruffle lampshade around the house so I can make more!