Cheap and Easy, Wallpaper Lampshade!

A surprisingly quick, easy and very cheap solution to matching your lampshade to your decor. Nobody will know!

For this project he will need:

A lampshade frame (I found mine in a charity shop and removed the old fabric)

A roll of wallpaper

A sharp cutting blade

A pair of scissors

A roll of narrow double sided tape

A roll of masking tape

A glue gun and glue sticks

3/4inch upholstery braid

Remove any old fabric from your lampshade and give it a bit of a clean. To start the project, apply double sided sticky tape to one panel of your lampshade. Cut off a suitable sized piece of wallpaper and stick it to the panel. Now trim the sides close to the frame with your cutting blade and with your scissors trim the top and bottom allowing 3/4 of an inch to fold over the frame.

Snip into the 3/4 inch selvage at the top and bottom of the frame. Apply a strip of double sided tape to the back side of the frame at the top and bottom and fold the tabs over.

Now tape the next panel but this time place your final strip of tape down the side of the previous panel that you have completed. Remove the sticky tape backing from the pieces on the frame but not from the piece stuck to the wallpaper. When you stick your next rectangle of wallpaper down, stick it to the three sticky sides as before and trim those sides, but on the final side that overlaps the wallpaper, mark it where you want to cut. (I usually do this by running my fingernail along the side of the frame that I can feel through the wallpaper but you could also do it using a ruler and a pen. It won’t show as this will eventually be covered by the braid.) Trim to the correct size then remove your final piece of tape backing and stick down the last side of your panel. Snip the top and bottom and complete as you did with the first piece. Continue around the lampshade until all the sides are covered.

Once all the panels are finished you can tidy the inside by trimming the tabs and covering the edges with masking tape. (I must apologise for the grubbiness of the edges of my tapes, they were stashed in the bottom of my toolbox.)

To complete your lampshade, you are going to glue braid over your seamlines. I did this with a glue gun which was quick and easy but needs to be done in small stages. Glue your vertical pieces first, starting at the top, then working your way down to the bottom, Glue it about 5 inches at a time allowing a few seconds for it to cool before applying more glue. Cover up your raw ends with braid at the top and bottom. And there you have it, a lampshade that looks bright and professional but costs next to nothing. Next time I am going to make a lampshade for a friend of mine using pictures that have been drawn by her children. The final picture is of a lovely paper shade made by my friend Linda Crawford who also makes lampshades.