Beautifully Adorned Shades Come into the Light

by Christy

As a child, when in various hardware or home improvement stores, if I wandered off my Mom knew to look for me in the lighting aisle. You know, the aisles that have all the lights hooked up overhead. I loved walking down those aisles and feeling the warm light spill down on me. Likewise, if my little hand slipped from hers while she was waiting in line at the bank, she knew I was in the branch manager’s office playing with the light that turned on by touch. So cool!

Watching my younger cousins grow up and discover light, I suppose it’s a fascination all children share, but here I am at 24--no, scratch that--25 and am still strangely drawn to lights (and by strangely, I mean moth-like attraction). I love wall sconces, wrought-iron chandeliers, and buffet lamps will always hold a special place in my heart. You see, I am also drawn to small things. This is an attraction Charles learned runs in the family as he witnessed my sister and me shopping in New York City in July. "This is so cool--look how small it is!" was a common expression coming from our lips.

So the two little buffet lamps I have at home were rarin’ for a makeover after I saw some pretty funky shades in a few craft shows and boutiques lately. I picked up my smallest lamp at a gift store. The base was 6 or 7 dollars, and the shade was the same price. My larger lamp was a gift, and I believe it hails from Pier 1. The shades are perfectly fine as they are, but what if I wanted something more festive for a holiday or to coordinate with my new décor? Well on a measly 15 bucks, I was able to totally revamp some basic lampshades and now I have a couple different options as far as shades go.

Supplies:

Basic mini lampshade in white or off-white

4-5 yards of medium width, satin ribbon (ours was 7/8")

Hot glue gun

Beaded embellishments (our fridge was pre-strung on a ribbon, $5 for 3 yards)

Wire ribbon (a little more expensive, but you don’t need as much)

Directions:

1.) If you have trouble finding bare shades (like we did) buy fabric covered shades. The fabric pulls off easily and actually leaves a slightly sticky surface that your ribbon will adhere to a bit.

2.) Tack one end of the ribbon to the underside of lampshade using the glue gun.

3.) Wrap ribbon over the top of shade--around and around it goes--and glue the other end of ribbon to the underside of shade as well.

4.) Glue remaining embellishments into place, whether they be beaded frangles, buttons, or accent ribbon. We glued the beaded fringe to the underside of the silver shade, and the pleated ribbon to the top of the yellow shade. With the wire ribbon, it was really easy to achieve this little accordion-pleated look.

5.) Place shade on lamp, turn lamp on, sit back and bask in the very soft, very warm, very romantic light of your latest crafting success.

The possibilities of this project are quite endless, and adorably small. I plan on gifting these little creations on all my friends and family. Handcrafted buffet lamps for everyone!

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